Aamir Khan is determined to make a success out of his nephew Imraan's career, come what may. And even if that means taking on the competition headlong, so be it. Anything for family, seems to be the marketing motto, as Harry Baweja puts in 80-crore plus Priyanka in the hi-fi sci-fi Love Story 2050 to ensure his son's super success on July 4.
Enter Aamir Khan with nephew Imraan's Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na and on same Friday as Harman's debut. "The Bawejas were shocked," says a source close to the film. "They had planned and strategized their film's release almost six months in advance. They had spoken to all their potential competitors from Salman and God Tussi Great Ho to Ram Gopal Varma and Sarkar Raj to Apoorva Lakhia 's Mission Istanbul and Aziz Mirza's Kismat Konnection to Yashraj and Tips. Harman called them up personally to make sure his film comes on a freed Friday. Then suddenly Aamir showed up to create an almost Saawariya-Om Shanti Om crisis. Jaane Tu's release was nowhere in sight when Love Story 2050 was announced. Suddenly they came out of the blue! "
Harry Baweja made a panic call to Aamir. Says the source, "Harry Baweja knows Aamir from the time he did B. Subhash's Love Love Love where Harry was an assistant director. Ever since then they've been in touch. When they spoke, Aamir told Harry he was indeed thinking of coming on 4 July. The reason given was that Sanjay Gadhvi's Kidnap in which Imraan has a key role was coming on July 25. Aamir reasoned that Imraan couldn't have two releases too close to one another. Later, the Bawejas were horrified to know that Kidnap was scheduled for August 22. Harry urged Aamir to move his film to July 11. But Aamir is adamant. "
Incidentally, Genelia Dsouza who plays Imraan's leading lady is also Harman's girl in his second release Victory. "The Bawejas first trailer started on a Sunday. That same day a blog went up saying 'Imraan Versus Harman'. That's when the Bawejas first came to know that the Khans were planning to release on the same day. Since then there has been a systematic campaign to bring down Harman on the blogs with comments like 'Harman looks gay'. He looks like a lot of things. But not gay. One of the blogs comments cattily on actors like Hrithik Roshan and Harman Baweja relying on their physique. Someone even broke into a website (wikipedia.com) sponsoring Harman's film and defaced it. They even changed Harman's picture to an unidentifiable man, and said the film was budgeted at 60,000 rupees and was to be released for 30 seconds in July 1950. The Bawejas traced the defacers to Delhi. The identity of the hackers was used just once, to deface Harman's face."
Harman smiles off all the competition. "Healthy competition is always welcome. I'd rather focus on my work. We've just started the promotion of our first song. It's one of the costliest songs ever filmed."
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