Remember Namastey London (2007) and Singh Is Kinng (2008)? Akshay Kumar had delivered back-to-back hits with the two films. And come to think of it, the Punjabi connection has been common in both of Akki’s films. Besides the Punjabi touch, the star is also extremely possessive of the ‘Singh’ in the film title.
In fact, Akki’s upcoming home production, Speedy Singh — earlier titled Breakaway — has been recently renamed Speedy Singh. And insiders inform that it was Akshay’s idea to include Singh in the title. When contacted, the official spokesperson of the movie confirms that Akshay thought of Speedy Singh as the title.
Akshay, for the uninitiated, has an extremely strong Punjabi connect with his audience. Recently, the actor was in the news for giving away the title, Son of Sardar, to Ajay Devgn, even though it was registered with him and he didn’t want to part with it initially. He is also working on a sequel to Singh Is Kinng. Interestingly, Akshay was reportedly the first choice to play athlete Milkha Singh in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Now, he isn’t in the running for the role. But industry insiders look at Akki’s title, Speedy Singh as an interesting co-incidence since Mehra’s film is about the Sikh athlete.
Meanwhile, the actor is leaving no stone unturned to create a buzz for his first Indo-Canadian venture. After working with international music sensations like Kylie Minogue in Blue (2009) and Snoop Dogg for the title track in Singh is Kinng, Akshay has partnered with Grammy-award-winning rapper and actor Ludacris for a track, Shera Di Kaum. The song has been composed by RDB and Ludacris has rapped on it.