Hindi
Aashiqui 3 in the pipeline along with other sequels
MUMBAI: With the trend of sequels getting popular in Bollywood, producer Bhushan Kumar has expressed his desire to turn Aashiqui and Bhootnath into franchise.
Kumar wants to take ahead three projects as a franchise, including Aashiqui, a romantic saga which recently had a hit sequel Aashiqui 2, ghost comedy Bhootnath and the yet to be released 3D horror movie Creature.
Provided the audience is ready to accept it, Kumar plans to turn these three films into a brand and make their third and fourth installment. This pattern is followed in Hollywood.
Kumar further reasons that he does not want to make sequel after sequel just for the sake of it, but if Bhootnath 2 and Creature receives good responses from the audiences, then he definitely has no plans to look behind.
In 2008 Ravi Chopra produced film Bhootnath, where megastar Amitabh Bachchan played a friendly ghost. The sequel will be produced by BR Films and Bhushan Kumar of T-Series.
The basic premise of the film will remain same, the ups and downs and the hilarious moments between Bachchan and the kid. The original film starred Bachchan, Juhi Chawla, Shahrukh Khan, Aman Siddiqui as Banku, Priyanshu Chatterjee and Rajpal Yadav.
The second installment, to be directed by Chillar Party (2011) co-director Nitesh Tiwari, will again have Bachchan reprising his role. The addition will be Boman Irani and a new child, who is yet to be cast.
The film will go on floors in October and will release in April next year. It is learnt that this time, the budget is going to be over Rs 30 crore. The first part was reportedly made on a budget of Rs 20 crore.
Meanwhile, Aashiqui 2, directed by Mohit Suri and co-produced by Bhatts’ Vishesh Films and Bhushan Kumar, has reportedly earned over Rs 100 crore at the box office since its release on April 26.
With the hit of Aashiqui 2, Kumar plans to take the brand ahead and make Aashiqui 3 after two-three years.
Kumar also wants to take ahead Vikram Bhatt horror thriller Creature, starring Bipasha Basu in the lead. The film is said to be on the lines of Jurassic Park, the landmark Hollywood film on dinosaurs.
Creature is set in a menacing forest that will house certain humongous and dangerous creatures. However, Kumar refused to divulge any further details about the project.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
