Idiots or 3 Idiots?

Director Rajkumar Hirani may not have faced as many dilemmas while making 3 Idiots as he’s facing in the run-up to its release this Christmas.

Barely had he resolved the issue of Kareena Kapoor in the posters that he posed himself another one — to delete ‘3’ from the title and call it Idiots, as he had originally wanted, or to retain 3 Idiots. Hirani could very well blame another filmmaker, Deepak Shivdasani, for his dilemma. The reason — he had registered the title Idiots for a subject he wanted to make, informs a source associated with Hirani.

Our source says that Hirani tried to get the title from Shivdasani. “But Deepak quoted an obscene Rs 25 lakh to let go of it. Seems as if he understood the magnitude of Raju’s film with a cast like Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Madhavan and Sharman Joshi for a banner like Vinod Chopra Productions. So he wanted to cash in on his right to the title Idiots,” elaborates our source.

It is believed that Hirani made constant efforts for a year to convince Shivdasani, but to no avail. Meanwhile, the tables had turned by the time Hirani wrapped up the shoot. “Keeping in mind the media space 3 Idiots got, Deepak realised that how much ever he tried, his movie would never be able to match up to Raju’s 3 Idiots in any way. So now he’s willing to release the title to Raju,” reveals our source, adding that this has caused Hirani to have second thoughts about reverting to his original title, Idiots.

But Aamir Khan maintains that they should continue with 3 Idiots. “Aamir has told Raju and Vinod that 3 Idiots has become a brand. Besides, they’ve also released its posters across the country,” says our source. Hirani declined to comment on Shivdasani’s monetary demands, but said, “Yes, the title Idiots has come back to us. But most probably, we’ll stick to 3 Idiots because even the posters have been released.”