Mumbai, Oct 10: If the giant poster red invitations are any indication, this party will be bigger than Karisma Kapoor’s wedding. Delhi businessman Lalit Suri’s just-opened Intercontinental in Mumbai is where Amitabh Bachchan plans a dramatic surprise, on the lobby’s butterfly-shaped stairway, for his 61st birthday bash. So will the directors of a rejuvenated AB Corp descend from the ceiling on Saturday night? ‘‘Something like that,’’ laughs Bachchan’s college pal Suri. After all, the day marks the relaunch of Bachchan’s company, complete with a new name. While ABCL was headed by Sanjiv Gupta, 49-year-old Wing Commander Ramesh Pulapaka will now head AB Corp. ‘‘We will chalk our road map differently. Our core focus will be feature films,’’ says Wg Cdr Pulapaka.

That begins with the mahurat clap of the Rajkumar Santoshi-directed Ranveer on Saturday, starring Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan playing father and son for the first time. ‘‘It’s a big budget, intense and dramatic film which involves a confrontation,’’ says Santoshi.
Saturday’s bash will see the entire lobby taken up for Bachchan’s 600-strong, elite guest list. The Ambanis, Amar Singh and his Samajwadi friends, Sahara’s Subroto Roy, the Godrejs, the Thackerays, the Chopras, the Johars, the Roshans and all the producers, directors and actors that Bachchan is presently working with are expected.
Hotel security has been beefed up with private security and policemen.
‘‘The organisers had elaborate plans, but we asked them to tone it down,’’ says Suri.
Bachchan, who will be attending the Marrakesh film festival in Morocco where a retrospective of his works is being screened, will be back only on the morning of the party. However, before he left, Bachchan gave a clear brief to Leo Entertainment’s Sanjay Bhutani, who had 10 days to conceptualise the event.
‘‘The decor and tone of the evening will have very warm colours as the idea is to show the re-energising of the company. It’s time to celebrate,’’ states Bhutani.
ABCL was launched in 1995. It started off with 15 films, distributed Bandit Queen and Bombay, and got into music with Aby Baby, Tere Mere Sapne and the like. But it went into debt which Bachchan just recently finished paying back.