(from left) Jaya, Karisma, Amitabh and Abhishek

Amitabh Bachchan, who turned 60 in a burst of colour last fortnight and is the subject of an exciting coffee-table book co-authored by wife Jaya, is starring in every film being made in Bollywood today. Just kidding. But you could easily be forgiven for thinking so. The actor, who has a fresh instalment of Kaun Banega Crorepati coming up, has signed on for nearly a dozen films with Farhan Akhtar, Raj Kumar Santoshi, Vikram Bhatt and Ravi Chopra-which is four times the number of films son Abhishek has on the floors. But Abhishek needn't worry about his sagging film career. His Rs 2.5-crore-a-film father, who's just Rs 5 crore away from clearing his Rs 80-crore ABCL debt, hopes to work in several more films as long as he possibly can.

Fight Master

He may only have hefted the British Raj for a six in Lagaan's dusty cricket field but now Aamir Khan gets ready to do what the action-hungry frontbenchers felt he should have done-shoot them down. Emerging from a year-long hibernation, Khan is playing the pivotal character of Mangal Pandey in Ketan Mehta's 1857-The Uprising. The character of the sepoy, who mutinied and fired the first shot of the bloody 1857 uprising killing a British sergeant major, has never been seen on screen. It was to have been done first by Amitabh Bachchan and later Sanjay Dutt in the film Mehta has been planning for over a decade. "Khan is an intelligent actor and has the attributes of playing a folk and a historic hero at the same time," says the director of the film that starts shooting next year for a 2004 release.

Q&A: SUNNY DEOL
"It's Not That I Don't Want To Do Different Roles."

After last year's insanely successful Gadar-among the five highest Bollywood grossers of all time-Anil Sharma and writer Shaktiman reunite with star Sunny Deol in the nearly-complete action flick The Hero.

Q. What is The Hero about?
A. It's a larger-than-life action film which tells the love story of a spy, which I play. The film is set in the present-day context of India-Pakistan and cross-border terrorism ... I think the audience doesn't want to see patriotism other than in the India-Pakistan context.

Q. With films like Maa Tujhe Salaam and Indian, isn't there a danger of you being typecast in patriotic action roles?
A. Maybe. But it's not that I don't want to do different roles; every time I've tried to do a different film, like Dillagi, it has been rejected by the masses. If we're working in a commercial format I have to bring audiences into theatres.

BOX OFFICE

Yeh Kya Ho Raha Hai, inspired by American Pie, has taken off to a limp start while the Tabu-Gurdas Mann-starrer Zindagi Khoobsurat Hai is a disaster. Coming up this Friday is Sanjay Dutt's blood and gore-saga Hathyar, director Mahesh Manjrekar's sequel to Vaastav. Also, Dil Vil Pyaar Vyaar will find out if there's a market for the golden oldies-it has 12 hit numbers by the late R.D. Burman.

-Compiled by Sandeep Unnithan