A Bollywood clash of titan films is underway between Dilwale, starring Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, and the historical drama Bajirao Mastani, starring Ranveer Singh, Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone, with early indicators showing box office numbers were stronger for SRK's movie, according to the Indian Express. Directed by Rohit Shetty, Dilwale is a comedy-action film which reunites SRK with Indian actress Kajol after a five-year hiatus. Bajirao Mastani, by contrast, is an historical romance saga directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali and starring Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra. According to Girish Wankhede of production-distribution company Entity One, there was a clear winner at the debut of of both movies. "Dilwale has opened to an occupancy of 70 per cent while Bajirao Mastani opened at 30 per cent." he said. – The National staff
The Force Awakens crosses $250 million globally after record Friday
Star Wars: The Force Awakens has already surpassed US$100 million (Dh367.3m) in North America and $250 million globally, setting it up for a record-breaking weekend. The Walt Disney Co. on Saturday said the film made an estimated $120.5 million from previews on the night of Thursday, December 17, and opening day, Friday, December 18. That smashes the previous opening day record of $91.1 million, set by 2011's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. (Studios count December 17 night grosses as part of opening day.) Disney is projecting a domestic weekend total of around $220 million, which would surpass the record $208.8 million of Jurassic World. It's a type of release never before seen in December, where the previous top opening was 2012's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey with $84.6 million. The latest Star Wars is playing in 4,134 North American theatres, the widest December release ever. But The Force Awakens is riding a wave of hype, nostalgia and positive reviews from critics and fans alike. J J Abrams' seventh chapter in George Lucas' saga has earned an A CinemaScore from moviegoers who have flooded theatres nationwide. About $100 million in advance tickets were sold for the movie's December 17 debut. Since beginning its overseas roll-out on Wednesday, December 16, The Force Awakens has made an estimated $129.5 million internationally. Jurassic World, an unexpected sensation in June, also holds the global weekend opening record with $524.9 million, a number The Force Awakens could well exceed. – AP
Spain takes Miss World Title in China
Spain’s Mireia Lalaguna Royo was named the winner of the Miss World 2015 competition in the southern Chinese island resort of Sanya, an event dogged by controversy over China’s refusal to allow Canada’s entrant to attend.
Sofia Nikitchuk of Russia was the runner-up and Indonesia’s Maria Harfanti took third place in the Saturday, December 19 final following a lengthy competition featuring 114 women. Each had won the right to represent their country in a series of local and regional competitions. The victory marked the first-ever win for a Spanish contestant. “I think this is a good decision, because Miss World is not looking for our body, they are looking for a soul,” said Lalaguna, a 23-year-old model from Barcelona with a degree in pharmacology who plans to pursue a master’s degree in nutrition. She placed first in the competition’s top model contest and appeared to impress the judges with her public speaking. “I think it’s important that they don’t want to see only our bodies, they are looking for moral things,” she said. Not present was Miss Canada, Chinese-born Anastasia Lin, who had been prevented from boarding her connecting flight to Sanya from Hong Kong last month after China refused her a visa. Lin is an outspoken critic of Chinese religious policy and a follower of the Falun Gong meditation practice, which was outlawed by China in 1999. She said that after she won the Canadian title, Chinese security agents visited her father, who still lives in China, in an apparent attempt to intimidate her into silence. China has hosted the competition seven times, starting in 2003, as part of its attempts to project a more modern, outgoing image. However, the controversy over Lin’s attendance illustrates the authoritarian communist government’s determination to do so on its own terms, regardless of the cost to the country’s reputation. Neither Beijing nor the London-based Miss World Organisation has commented on the controversy. It was the second consecutive year that outside events intruded on the competition. Last year’s contest in London was marred by the murder the month before of Miss Honduras and her sister in that country. The first Miss World contest was held 64 years ago in Britain. – AP
Leader of the New York Philharmonic dies at 88
Kurt Masur was a conductor who knew how to use his authority. He used it to tame orchestras – notably the unruly New York Philharmonic, which he led for 11 years - and to historic effect in his native land, when his call for calm helped prevent violence during tense 1989 pro-democracy protests in East Germany. Masur died Saturday at age 88 in a hospital in Greenwich, Connecticut, from complications from Parkinson’s disease, the New York Philharmonic said, issuing a statement praising his “profound belief in music”. His move to ward off violence in East Germany was, Masur later acknowledged, a belated move in a country that many artists had long turned their backs on but in which he held a position of rare international renown as the director of Leipzig’s storied Gewandhaus Orchestra, where his predecessors included Felix Mendelssohn. “I was busy with music for too long,” Masur recalled in an interview last year with the German weekly Der Spiegel. “But when I learnt that all of a sudden street musicians were being arrested for wanting to protest peacefully, I realised that change was overdue.” – AP
China bans North Korean pop group concert
A North Korean all-female pop group cancelled their Beijing concert last week when Chinese authorities objected to “anti-American” lyrics in the show, a source with ties to North Korea and China told Reuters. The Moranbong Band was visiting China along with North Korea’s State Merited Chorus and was due to perform at Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts on December 12. Chinese censors did not approve of a line which referred to the United States an “ambitious wolf”, and lyrics which glorified the 1950-53 Korean War, according to the source. “China did not ask that the lyrics be changed but it did not pass screening by censors,” said the source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the subject. “China was of the view that the lyrics would unnecessarily provoke the US”. China has tried to act as an honest broker between the United States and North Korea and has repeatedly attempted to get the rivals to cool their rhetoric as it seeks to promote harmony in the region. The Moranbong Band is North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s pet project as he tries to put his personal stamp on North Korean arts, and the short haircuts of the group’s young women members are trendsetting in the capital, Pyongyang. The ensemble, whose members were reportedly hand-picked by Kim, was formed in 2012, and the China show was to be their first overseas. – Reuters
Driver in Tracy Morgan crash seeks dismissal
A lawyer for the Wal-Mart lorry driver involved in a 2014 crash that severely injured comedian Tracy Morgan and killed his friend has said he will ask a New Jersey judge this week to dismiss all criminal charges against his client.
Kevin Roper’s rights were violated, his attorney David Glassman said, because a federal court refused to allow him to ask for a stay in a civil suit that the Saturday Night Live entertainer brought against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Such stays are routinely granted while related criminal matters are pending, Glassman said. If the court had allowed Roper to intervene, “a tsunami of negative pretrial publicity would have been avoided and Roper’s right to a fair trial would have been preserved,” Glassman said in an email to Reuters. Roper’s hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in Middlesex County Superior Court in New Brunswick. The June 2014 accident on the New Jersey Turnpike left Morgan, now 47, with a serious head injury and broken bones and put him in a coma. His friend and fellow comedian James ‘Jimmy Mack’ McNair was killed when the tractor-trailer lorry driven by Roper ploughed into the rear end of a limousine bus in which Morgan and six others were riding. Nine others were also injured in the chain-reaction collision. The US. National Transportation Safety Board issued a report in August that found Roper responsible. It said the lorry driver had not slept for 28 hours when the early-morning accident occurred, a finding that Glassman denies. Roper, a Georgia resident who was 35 when the accident occurred, faces charges of vehicular homicide and assault by auto, though Glassman said indictments have yet to be handed down. – Reuters