SRK’s ‘My Name is Khan’ may have stirred more than just the box office, but he’s definitely making a cushy amount of profit from it. It seems that touring the entire world for promoting his movie has finally paid off.

Though it seemed for a while there that Shah Rukh my not get the right kind of response due to Shiv Sena’s increasing threat of violence against those who dared to screen his movie in Mumbai, the truth is that the movie has made quite a bit of money. The controversies that he got entangled in, the one where he made a hue and cry about being detained at Newark airport and then finally the recent row with the Shiv Sena, has definitely worked in Shah Rukh’s favor.

Even as audiences trickled in through the cinema doors, defying Shiv Sena’s threats against the movie on the weekend, the movie has been able to do good business. The opening in fact was farm from just being lukewarm. The story, which is set against the backdrop of the 9/11 tragedy, has been able to gross $18 million on its opening weekend.

No doubt the movie has scored great reviews, but when you compare the movie statistically to arch Rival Amir’s ‘3 Idiots’ there’s still much that MNIK has to achieve. 3 Idiots grossed $70 Million in the first 19 days of its release from worldwide distributions.

IPL, right from its start has been known to marry cricket with Bollywood. With Preity and Shahrukh, both having their own teams, more Bollywood stars were bound to keep a keen interest in Cricket. Everything was going hunky dory till last year. This year however, things are not looking all too well.

This year, a bitter row has broken out between Shiv Sena and Shah Rukh Khan, over the the non inclusion of 11 Pakistani players who were called for the bidding but faced the frustration and humiliation of being completely ignored. The controversy broke out when Shah Rukh claimed that he was disturbed by the fact that none of the teams bid for any of the Pakistani players. He said that he really regretted the gesture and favored the inclusion of Pakistani players in IPL teams.

This did not go well with the Shiv Sena at all. Shiv Sena leaders have got offended by Shah Rukh’s Sentiments and are demanding that Shah Rukh’s upcoming movie ‘My Name is Khan’ should not be screened in Mumbai.

Given Shiv Sena’s past behavior record, the Maharashtra government has all the reason to be anxious about Shiv Sena’s threat. They are worried that Shiv Sena activists may resort to violence, and rightly so. With the matter spewing flames right now, there is a rising rift between the Bollywood stars and the political parties of Maharashtra.