Farhan Akhtar and Riteish Deshmukh are in a predicament. After much deliberation they had named their film "Fukrey", which means ‘good-for-nothing’. However, a strange problem cropped up when the film went on floors after the poster launch on November 5, last year. To their dismay, they found people, including the crew, mispronouncing the name. It was its similarity to the ‘F word’ that created the entire problem.
“Everywhere Farhan and Riteish went, people addressed the film as ‘Fuk-Ray’ instead of ‘Phookrey’. They had to explain each time how to pronounce the word and the fact that the film is anything but a sex comedy. However, all this confusion led Farhan to realise that it would be difficult to retain the title,” a source said. Farhan also anticipated censor board problems because there was a general perception that the title was a deliberate attempt to use the ‘F word’ in the title. “Many in the industry opined it was a smart attempt to escape the scissors of the censor board,” the source added.
Hence, although the film’s poster was already launched and the name was registered, hunt for a new name began. “Farhan and Ritesh had a meeting where they came up with a new name. They want to rename the film before marketing begins,” the source added. When we tried to get in touch with Farhan, his spokesperson got back to us saying: “Yes, there is some confusion over the title and we are thinking of it. But we can’t give any details.”
