It’s a known fact that if there was no support from Ajay Devgn, Rohit Shetty would not have come so far. From Zameen to Bol Bachchan, Ajay Devgn has been standing as a piller of support for his friend. Both have given Bollywood a series of blockbusters together.
But, then Rohit Shetty walked away from Ajay Devgn, and did Chennai Express with Shah Rukh Khan. Rohit is also in the process of starting his own production house. Now, Ajay too feels that it’s high time he too starts looking out for other options.
Ajay is set to launch Shivalaya Entertainment (based in Los Angeles) to focus on independent films focused on the international market. He will produce Leena Yadav’s Parched, about the journey of women in drought stricken areas of rural India. Leena’s debut film was Shabd, starring Aishwarya Rai, Sanjay Dutt and Zayed Khan, followed by Teen Patti that marked the debut of Shraddha Kapoor and also starred Amitabh Bachchan and Ben Kingsley. The actor also owns Ajay Devgn Films (launched in 2000).
Similarly, Salman Khan started Salman Khan Being Human Productions (SKBHP) in 2010. It produced the National Award winning film, Chillar Party (2011). Next, the banner will produce a remake of Mahesh Manjrekar’s Marathi film, Shikshanachya Aaicha Gho (2010).
Salman Khan is also in the process of launching Salman Khan Productions next year to focus on mainstream films.
On the other hand Akshay Kumar has Grazing Goat Productions (launched in 2011) that focuses on Hindi and regional language cinema. Akshay also owns Hari Om Productions.
This trend of having two production houses for the two different streams of filmmaking was started by UTV Productions, when they launched UTV Motion Pictures for mainstream commercial films and UTV Spot Boy, that concentrated on either off beat films or small budget films.
Having said this Rohit is still friends with Ajay and they are still doing Singham 2 and Golmaal 4 together.
Cheers to their friendship!
