Bollywood turns out for Ramayana’s Mumbai screening, Ed Sheeran reveals how he joined King, and Nicolas Cage is living in hotels

The makers of Ramayana: Part One hosted a special screening for the film industry in Mumbai on 3 November, two days before the film opens worldwide on 5 November. Ranbir Kapoor, who plays Lord Rama, arrived in a maroon kurta, and was joined by Alia Bhatt and his mother Neetu Kapoor, Sunny Deol (Hanuman), Ravi Dubey (Lakshman), Kunal Kapoor, Kajal Aggarwal, Lara Dutta, Rakul Preet Singh with Jackky Bhagnani, director Nitesh Tiwari and producer Namit Malhotra, The Indian Express reported. Ravi Dubey was seen touching Sunny Deol’s feet for blessings before the show. The Hindustan Times reported that by the morning of 3 November the film was on more than 5,000 screens, with about ₹58 crore in India pre-sales and around $5 million in overseas advance bookings, taking its worldwide advance total to about ₹105 crore. North America gets paid previews on 4 November. These are advance ticket sales, not box office collections.

Ed Sheeran has explained how he ended up on Tu Mil Jaaye, the first song from Shah Rukh Khan’s King. In an Instagram post on his account @teddysphotos, he shared a behind-the-scenes video of himself singing in Hindi and wrote: “When i first met Shah Rukh, he said i must make a song to be in his next movie and also be my first Bollywood song.” He said that on his last visit to India, Shah Rukh introduced him to composers Sachin-Jigar, and “i wrote and recorded my verse for Tu Mil Jaaye for his movie King that night”. Shah Rukh replied: “Can’t thank u enough my friend for doing the song…especially the Hindi bits,” News18 reported. King, directed by Siddharth Anand, opens on 24 December.

Oh My Goddess, the third film in the OMG franchise, has reportedly lost its director. Pinkvilla reported on 3 November, citing unnamed sources, that Amit Rai and the producers have parted ways after long disagreements over the script, the casting of the lead and the release plan, and that the makers intend to move ahead with a new director. Neither side has commented publicly, so treat this as a report rather than a confirmed change.

Cher has answered Michael Douglas with a compliment. On a recent episode of The Graham Norton Show, sitting beside his Fatal Attraction co-star Glenn Close, Douglas said Close should have won the 1988 best actress Oscar, and joked “I know, that’s what we all said!” when Cher’s win for Moonstruck came up. Cher’s representative told Entertainment Weekly simply: “Cher adores Michael Douglas,” Variety reported. Douglas won best actor that same night for Wall Street.

Nicolas Cage says he is “a little bit homeless”. Speaking at a Los Angeles Comic Con panel on Halloween, the actor said a problem with his Malibu house means he is “just sort of living in hotels”, Variety reported on 3 November. A sinkhole about 25 feet deep opened near the driveway of his home on 8 September, forcing 31 nearby homes, including his, to be evacuated. Officials have not determined the cause. Cage plays football coach John Madden in Amazon MGM’s Madden, due on 11 November, and has been announced for season 5 of HBO’s True Detective.

The cause of death of original Star Trek actor Walter Koenig, who played Pavel Chekov and died on 25 October at 90, has been made public. His death certificate, obtained by TMZ and People, lists cardiopulmonary arrest as the primary cause, with chronic diastolic congestive heart failure as an underlying cause and acute kidney failure as a contributing condition, USA Today reported.

In Pakistan, veteran actress Uzma Gillani travelled from Australia to Karachi to launch her new prose book Ain Aurat, Meem Mard, which looks at relationships, mutual respect and gender balance between women and men, Dawn reported. The ceremony at the Defence Authority Club was presided over by poet Zehra Nigah, with speakers including Bushra Ansari, Munawar Saeed and Noor-ul-Huda Shah, and guests such as Nabeel Zafar and Aijaz Aslam. “This book is not merely a collection of pages, but the voice of my heart,” Gillani said. The book is in bookstores now, with a digital edition to follow.

Also from Pakistan: actress and host Atiqa Odho said in an interview that, in her observation, women in the industry usually face less insecurity from their partners about working with male co-stars than male actors do from their wives, 24 News reported. And Hina Afridi, who plays Qamar un Nissa in Green Entertainment’s Mitti De Baway, shared behind-the-scenes photos from the set with co-star Wahaj Ali and director Syed Wajahat Hussain, Reviewit.pk reported.