Ranbir Kapoor, Mallika Sherawat, Rekha, John Abraham and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan return with a bang in 2015

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's return post-motherhood in Jazbaa is being considered the comeback of the year while John Abraham is working simultaneously on six projects after no release last year despite the critically acclaimed Madras Cafe.

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Ranbir Kapoor, Mallika Sherawat, Rekha, John Abraham and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan return with a bang in 2015

You are as big as your last release, thus goes the showbiz adage. In Bollywood, where fortunes change faster than weeks pass by, absence from the marquee is deemed an avoidable idea. In the dog-eat-dog world of stardom, there will always be half a dozen pretenders to wrest your space.

Yet out of sight need not mean out of mind as Aamir Khan has proved. New-gen stars, especially Ranbir Kapoor, have cracked that formula well too. The year ahead will see him returning for the first time since his last release in October 2013. Ranbir was absent from the box office all through 2014 but his relationship with Katrina Kaif kept him in the news.

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Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's return post-motherhood in Jazbaa is being considered the comeback of the year while John Abraham is working simultaneously on six projects after no release last year despite the critically acclaimed Madras Cafe.

Ranbir Kapoor
Returns with: Roy; Bombay velvet; Jagga Jasoos; Tamasha
Last starring role: Besharam (2013)
Besharam was Ranbir's bid at masala superstardom and the film's no-show sent the actor back to thinking about the storyboard. His most ambitious project yet is Anurag Kashyap's Bombay Velvet, while Anurag Basu's Jagga Jasoos (with Katrina Kaif) sees him turn producer. Imtiaz Ali's Tamasha (with Deepika Padukone) is not yet confirmed for this year.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
Returns with: Jazbaa
Last starring role: Guzaarish (2010)
Aishwarya had actually started shooting for Madhur Bhandarkar's 2012 film Heroine but walked out when she became pregnant. She now returns in Sanjay Gupta's Jazbaa, based on Korean crime drama Seven Days, and will soon start work on Karan Johar's Ae Dil Hai Mushkil starring Ranbir Kapoor.

Mallika Sherawat

Returns with: Dirty politics
Last starring role: Kismet, Love, Paisa, Dilli (2012)
Mallika's grand plans for Hollywood stardom failed and not many big projects await back home either for a heroine whose claim to fame was being sexy in a bikini. KC Bokadia's Dirty Politics claims to be a realistic story about Bhanwari Devi but Mallika's overtly publicised item dance suggests
otherwise.

John Abraham
Returns with: Welcome back; Rocky; Handsome; Dhishoom; Hera Pheri 3
Last starring role: Madras cafe (2013)
John had a good run in 2013, garnering praise for Shootout at Wadala and Madras Cafe. After a blank year then, he seems to have found his mojo in multistarrer films (barring Rocky Handsome).

Rekha
Returns with: Fitoor
Last starring role: Sadiyaan (2010)
Rekha has always been an enigma, and fans were naturally excited when news broke out that Abhishek Kapoor had cast her in a desi avatar of the scheming Miss Havisham in Fitoor, a Bollywood interpretation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. Rekha finally gets a solid role beyond her plastic avatar in the Krrish series.