Stallone to be at Kambakht Ishq’s premiere

Producer Sajid Nadiadwala has hit it off so well with Sylvester Stallone while shooting for Kambakht Ishq that he has convinced the Rocky star star to attend the premiere of the film in India as well as to work together in more movies. “Yes, Stallone will be coming to Mumbai for the premiere. In fact, we have hit it off so well that I’ve convinced him for more collaborations with us,” said Nadiadwala.

“However, it’s too premature to talk about any concrete plans between the two of us. He did give me a book to read, but that doesn’t mean I’m making a movie out of it, not yet.” The producer has huge plans for Kambakht Ishq. He plans to have an international release of the English version of the movie at the same time with the Hindi in April-May 2009. “It’ll be a much shorter version of the original. While the Hindi version will be around 130 minutes, the English version will be 90-100 minutes long and without any song.”

Nadiadwala is working on the English version of Kambakht Ishq. Though Akshay is all set to finally go international with his first English-language film, he won’t be heard speaking in his own voice. “I’ll get dubbing artistes from outside India to dub for everyone, excluding Sylvester Stallone. Akshay certainly can’t make himself comprehensible to American audiences in his own voice,” said Nadiadwala from Vicenza in Italy, where the last portion of Kambakht Ishq is being shot with Kareena, Akshay, Aftab Shivdasani and Amrita Arora.

To knock off the elaborate Hindi song sequences for the English version, Sajid is getting a creative music director from Hollywood as a consultant. “We’ve zeroed in on three guys who specialise in editing Hollywood musicals including the gentleman who did The wedding Singer. I’ll hire one of them to put together the English version of Kambakht Ishq. I don’t want it to be seen as a dubbed Bollywood film. I want it to be on a par with the American releases, just as slick.”

This is where the presence of Stallone, Denise Richards and Entourage star Holy Valencia would help. “These stars would help bring in the American audience and establish a connect with the film. Like in India, most audiences won’t care about Stallone and other Hollywood stars. They’ll just go to watch Akshay.” Nadiadwala is hoping Kambakht Ishq would be the international launch of Akshay’s career.

“He has it in him. And we’ve worked really hard to give Kambakht Ishqn an international look and feel. My film has gone way above budget. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make a film so expensive. The ticket fare to Europe alone costs what was the entire budget of my first production.”