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FILM INTERVIEW: ANEES BAZMEE

Bollywood Director Says ‘Thank You’ is Not a Sequel to ‘No Entry’

By: Simran Mody
April 6, 2011

Anees BazmeeBollywood writer-director says Thank You is not a sequel to No Entry, just like Unknown is not Taken 2. Just how Twentieth Century Fox planned for an actual sequel to Taken to be released in 2012, Mr. Bazmee ardently holds No Entry 2 will be an entirely different script, should the film’s producers (possibly Boney Kapoor) plan to go forward with the project. Until that day comes, Mr. Bazmee insists that Thank You--which stars Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Suneil Shetty, Irfan Khan, Celina Jaitley, Rimi Sen, and Mallika Sherawat (in an item number)--is a stand-alone film meant to watched on its own merits.

 
The UTV Motion Pictures production, brought to multiplexes by Ronnie Screwvala and Twinkle Khanna one weekend after Bollywood shut down for the ICC World Cup (which India claimed the title), is a romantic comedy that indeed bears no relation to No Entry. To that effect, Mr. Bazmee told the Indian press that allegations of Thank You effectively being "No Entry 2" is no different than observing a woman color-coordinate her wardrobe.
 
“I read (in the newspapers and online) that my script for Thank You is actually the script that I wrote for the sequel to No Entry. Am I so foolish that I’d just mix and match scripts with projects like women color-coordinate their clothes?” Mr. Bazmee rhetorically asked. “And if I had actually given over the script of No Entry Mein Entry (No Entry 2) to another producer, would (No Entry producer) Boney Kapoor have been happy with me?”
 
To be fair, there are indeed plans for a No Entry sequel, not to mention the whole idea for Thank You being spawned from a music video shoot in Egypt featuring Mr. Kumar and Katrina Kaif. Accordingly, inferences of Thank You being the sequel to No Entry is not entirely far-fetched.
 
Still, Mr. Bazmee hopes Hindi film fans will distinguish between the two films and understand there is no connection between them.
 
“For the record, the script of No Entry Mein Entry is in progress. The idea for Thank You came to me when I was shooting a song with Akshay Kumar and Katrina in Egypt. We decided then and there to make Thank You,” he said.
 
A film about three married men wooing other women while still in wedlock, Mr. Bazmee also squashed rumors of internal quibbling amongst the film’s cast and crew, stating that while Thank You may have been about familial chasms on-screen, the bond shared off-screen was anything but.
 
“Some people are spreading these baseless stories about my projects. They won’t spare a bachcha (young one) like Aarya Babbar either. Some people wrote that he abandoned my location in Bangkok for Ready to join Shirish Kunder and Farah Khan in Chandigarh for Joker because they are like his family,” Mr. Bazmee told the press. “For the record, even our unit is like one big family. Aarya did not desert our shooting. He left when there was a break and with my permission. Please spare the boy. He’s trying to establish himself.”
 
Speaking of being established, Mr. Bazmee has built quite the foundation for himself in Bollywood, coming a long way from his 1998 debut film of Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha (starring Ajay Devgn and Kajol) before moving to films such as Singh Is Kinng and, now, Thank You. With Ready (starring Salman Khan) currently in production in Thailand, Mr. Bazmee certainly has a lot to look forward to.
 
“I have two big back-to-back releases: first Thank You and then Ready,” he stated to the media. “I suppose that’s too much for my well-wishers to digest. I request them to let me do my work in peace. The rest I leave to God and the audience.”
 
With the ICC World Cup finally over and Bollywood resuming business, Mr. Bazmee will certainly have no problem garnering an audience for this weekend’s release of Thank You. What remains to be seen is whether he will be thankful to God for the film’s box office receipts.
 
UTV Motion Pictures' 'Thank You' is released on April 8, 2011.