Why Was Priyanka Chopra-starrer 'Gangaajal 2' Renamed 'Jai Gangaajal'?

MUMBAI — Prakash Jha’s “Gangaajal 2” has been renamed “Jai Gangaajal.” The film, starring Priyanka Chopra, will release worldwide Mar. 4, 2016.

The film was launched as a sequel in spirit of the Ajay Devgn hit “Gangaajal” (2002), which dealt with a similar theme — of society’s relationship with the police. “Gangaajal” highlighted how a society gets the police it deserves. Thirteen years later, Jha revisits the heartland of North India and examines the society-police relationship again to tell a new story.

Chopra plays Abha Mathur, the new superintendent of police in town, who is posted in the district, because, as a woman, she will perhaps be easily manipulated and will not disturb the entrenched cop-crime nexus of the town.

“Much has changed in the last 13 years,” says Jha. “When I made “Gangaajal” 13 years ago, the dictum was that every society gets the police that it deserves. Today, the cops seem to follow the dictum of “inaction is virtue and efficiency is crime.”

The ensemble cast of the action drama includes Manav Kaul, Rahul Bhat, Murli Sharma and Ninad Kamat. Written and directed by Jha, the film has been produced by Prakash Jha Productions and Play Entertainment.

However, there lies a story behind why the film needed a change of name. When Jha had first come to Mumbai in the ‘80s, it was Manmohan Shetty who mentored him and gave him his flat to stay in. He also made the earlier film for Shetty as the producer under his company Entertainment One Pvt. Ltd. in 2002.

Jha assumed that Shetty would not demand any rights for the sequel that was being produced by someone else — after all, he and not Shetty was the public face of the film as the writer and director and had subsequently made successful films like “Apaharan” and “Raajneeti” as well. But now, Reliance Big Entertainment and Phantom Films have claimed ownership of the film, as Shetty has sold all its rights to Reliance, and they have in turn tied up with Phantom.

Accusing Phantom (owned by Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Madhu Mantena and Vikas Bahl) of being unethical in sending him a legal notice, Jha says that the company had kept quiet after he announced and shot the film (which took two years!) but are now demanding a share of the profit.

Asks Jha, “Apart from my emotional attachment to the title, I still own 50 percent of the profits that still come to me. And, since they have not invested at all in the new film, how can they ask for a share of the profit?”

Jha has thus renamed the new film, stating that in any case, the film is not a true sequel. Maybe Jha can now move away from his Hindi heartland stories ad infinitum and start exposing nefarious money practices in filmdom in his next movie!