Kangana Ranaut will definitely have mixed feelings about this particular New Year. The actress has just earned herself a 100 crore royal club entry purely on her own might and the next thing you know is that the creepy crawlies have come tumbling out to pay her a visit. A T-Series production titled I Love NY (apparently New Year and not New York) starring Kangana Ranaut and the brawny Sunny Deol that was to hit theatres (but never did) in April 2013 is suddenly rearing its head in the distributors circles. ILNY directed by Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru, the duo who had earlier made Lucky – No time for Love with Salman in 2005, was in the limelight briefly due to the odd or fresh (take your pick) casting of Sunny and Kangana.
Here is the ILNY timeline. It was shot over two years (2011-12) and the teaser comes out in January 2013. The first look event takes place on 26 February 2013 with the simultaneous release of the trailer on YouTube. Everything is hunky dory; Sunny and Kangana have much to say about how ‘different’ the film is, all in the company of its producers and director. It is slated to release on 26 April that year, however it makes way for Aashiqui 2 (another T Series film) and then gets pushed to July… then September... December 2013. The New Year comes and goes and then the date of 14 February 2014 is set, but it never releases. Finally everybody gives up on it.
According to T-Series the ILNY trailer did garner the much needed hits on YouTube then and also had its share of the mandatory pre-release publicity but for various reasons it never stuck to a release date. One of the reasons doing rounds is that, T-Series honcho Bhushan Kumar diverted his attention to more valued sure-shot productions on hand at that time like Aashiqui 2 and Yaariyan and that turned out to be money-spinners. Bhushan, known for his business acumen may have felt that ILNY might not do well. Maybe apprehensive of the fact that Sunny ‘s romantic avatar in the film might find few takers. And to make matters worse for him and Sunny, Yamla Pagla Deewana 2 and Singh Saab the Great failed at the box office. As a result ILNY became cold and its rights were reportedly sold off to the Wave group.
Two years on with Queen and Tanu Weds Manu Returns pitching Kangana right to the top, ILNY is now being resuscitated. Talk about dreaming of capital gains. Sunny Deol, who is currently busy with his in-house production Ghayal Once Again, may not remember much of ILNY. But no prizes for guessing that Kangana would be hopping mad with this new development and has reportedly threatened to sue the producers if they release the film without her consent.
If all goes as planned ILNY should hit the screens a month from now, on 3 July 2015. And if that scores at the box-office, then we all probably should say ‘Superstar Kangana’ thrice over. But if it bombs then surely Datto has every right to turn up at T-Series and point to that non-existent kabootar one last time and do her thing. Without Sunny behind her, just going solo.
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