ANNOUNCEMENT & LAUNCHING
‘Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon’ Launched With Song Recording
Rajshri Productions P. Ltd.’s Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon was launched on March 10 (Holi) with a song recording at Spectral Harmony. The recording was completed on March 11. Penned by Dev Kohli and tuned by Anu Malik, the song was rendered by Sunidhi Chauhan.
Being produced by Kamal Kumar Barjatya, Rajkumar Barjatya and Ajit Kumar Barjatya and written and directed by Sooraj R. Barjatya, the film stars Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor, and Abhishek Bachchan in a friendly appearance. Regular shooting will commence in the last week of May.
Raj Kanwar To Introduce Arya Babbar
Producer-director Raj Kanwar has signed Arya Babbar, son of Nadira and Raj Babbar, to act in Inderjit Film Combines’ next. A new leading lady and other cast and credits are being finalised.
LATEST POSITION
The excellent collections of CHORI CHORI CHUPKE CHUPKE in Ahmedabad came as happy news about the revival of business in Gujarat after the earthquake.
Chori Chori Chupke Chupke dropped badly from 5th/6th day onwards almost everywhere except in Maharashtra, South and U.P. However, a sharp decline in collections was reported on 8th day in U.P. too. 1st week Bombay 76,40,383 (84.90%) from 16 cinemas (6 on F.H.); Ahmedabad 24,64,924 from 4 cinemas, Rajkot 3,37,230 from 2 cinemas (1 in matinee), Jamnagar 1,53,144; Pune 16,13,779 from 6 cinemas (1 in matinee), Solapur 3,23,219 from 2 cinemas (1 in matinee), Satara 1,60,118 (92.30%) from 2 cinemas (1 in matinee); Hubli 2,84,287 (87.68%); Delhi 76,46,611 (68.08%) from 14 cinemas (2 on F.H.); Kanpur (6 days) 5,90,273 from 2 cinemas, Lucknow 8,72,048 from 2 cinemas, Agra 5,50,000, Varanasi 3,00,163, Allahabad 2,41,000, Bareilly (3 days) 1,11,442; Calcutta 22,17,849 from 7 cinemas (other cinemas’ collections undisclosed); Nagpur 9,35,799 from 4 cinemas, Jabalpur (6 days) 2,47,328, Amravati 3,01,058, Akola 2,88,500, Raipur (6 days, gross) 2,98,600, Durg 1,13,062, Jalgaon 2,87,347, Wardha 1,21,667, Chandrapur 2,13,020, Yavatmal (29 shows) 1,42,780 (79.87%); Indore 3,67,079 from 2 cinemas (2 on F.H.); Jaipur 9,63,637 (59.95%) from 3 cinemas, Ajmer (29 shows) 1,59,719, Bikaner (gross) 3,00,801; Hyderabad (gross) 43,82,303 from 14 cinemas (1 on F.H.). Total 3,46,29,170 from 97 cinemas.
Vatsyayana Kamasutra is generally dull. 1st week Bombay 6,78,948 (37.22%) from 4 cinemas (1 on F.H.); Pune 2,21,331 from 3 cinemas; Delhi 11,12,997 (29.38%) from 6 cinemas; Lucknow 1,28,473; Nagpur 67,229, Akola 58,441, Raipur (6 days) 30,494; Jaipur 1,46,650 (29.92%), Bikaner 77,239. Total 25,21,802 from 19 cinemas.
Kaun Banega Crorepati… Bhoot Banglay Ke Andar (dubbed) is poor. 1st week Bombay 1,96,125 (28.58%; 3 cinemas unrecd., 2 on F.H.); Jabalpur 15,978.
Pyar Ka Josh (dubbed) 1st week Lucknow 97,416; Jaipur 71,935 (20.01%). Dull.
Daku Bhairav Singh 1 week Bombay 28,760 (11.75%). Poor.
Pyar Ki Umang 1st week Bombay was dull.
Officer 2nd week Bombay 6,01,671 (44.63%) from 3 cinemas (3 cinemas unrecd., 5 on F.H.); Pune 4,78,378 from 3 cinemas, Solapur 90,114; 2nd week Delhi 2,76,472 from 3 cinemas (3 on F.H.); Kanpur 1,44,844 from 2 cinemas, Lucknow 1,58,457, Varanasi 1,35,509, Bareilly (6 days) 94,070; Calcutta 4,74,432 from 10 cinemas; Nagpur 71,606 from 2 cinemas, Jabalpur (6 days) 33,127, Amravati 65,352, Akola 47,962 (1st week 1,29,613), Raipur (6 days) 79,916, Jalgaon about 64,000, Yavatmal 28,389 (1st 88,851); Jaipur 61,212 (12.39%); 1st week Mangalore 1,87,852.
Mohabbatein 20th week Bombay 7,93,641 (50.24%) from 7 cinemas (4 on F.H.), total for 20 weeks 5,08,90,255; Ahmedabad 1,19,683 from 3 cinemas; Pune 66,237, Solapur (7 shows) 11,001; Delhi 2,50,299 from 2 cinemas; Kanpur 90,940 from 2 cinemas (1 on F.H.), Lucknow 2,25,694, Agra 91,000, 2nd week Varanasi (revived) 58,888, 20th week Allahabad 41,204; Nagpur 30,730, Amravati 48,413.
CINEMA OWNER DEAD
Vithal Shivaji Sonawane, proprietor of Mohan Chitra Mandir, Jalgaon expired on 5th March in Jalgaon. He was suffering from lung cancer. He was 64 and is survived by his wife, three sons and their families. The cinema remained closed for the day.
AMPTPP PRESSES FOR ABOLITION OF ST LEVY
The Association of Motion Pictures & TV Programme Producers (AMPTPP) has, in a letter dated 9th March, urged Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to put an end to the raids conducted by sales-tax officials on the premises of music companies. It may be mentioned here that offices of several music companies, including HMV, Sony, Magnasound and Universal, were visited by the sales tax officials with search and seizure warrants last week. The tax officials also questioned the music companies with specific regard to tax due on copyright transactions in accordance with the levy of 4% sales tax on such transactions as per the state budget for the year 2000-2001.
AMPTPP points out in the letter that the action of the sales tax department has shocked the entertainment industry as it goes against the assurances given by the chief minister at a meeting last year with industry representatives to discuss removal of the new sales tax.
NIMBUS UNVEILS FILM PRODUCTION PLANS
Leading television content provider and a new entrant to film production, Nimbus Communications Ltd., will release its first film — Ek Hoti Vaadi (Marathi) — in May this year. The small-budget film, directed by Ajay Phansekar, stars Shivaji Satam, Reema, Dilip Kulkarni and Sheetal Kshirsagar. The release is part of Nimbus’ Phase I in film production during which it will invest Rs. 7.91 crore in a total of five feature films in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and Kannada languages. The company intends to generate revenue of Rs. 28 crore in the year 2001-2002 from film business. Ek Hoti Vaadi will be followed by a medium-budget Tamil film, Sangeetham, being directed by Suresh Krissna. Other films at various stages of production and pre-production are: Sarhad Paar, directed by Raman Kumar and starring Sanjay Dutt and Tabu; Ram (Kannada), directed by Raam Shetty; and a big-budget romantic thriller, to be directed by Aziz Mirza.
Nimbus is also considering a couple of international co-productions, of which an Indo-French film in English, to be shot entirely in India, is at an advanced stage of finalisation.
SHASHI KAPOOR SELLS PROPERTY
Actor-filmmaker Shashi Kapoor recently sold the second floor of Prithvi House at Juhu, Bombay for Rs. 1.2 crore. The property owners are Shashi Kapoor’s Filmwallas and Prithviraj Memorial Trust.
‘Chori Chori Chupke Chupke’ The Flaw Chart
With the collections of Chori Chori Chupke Chupke falling faster than share prices do on the stock market, a number of theories are being propounded to explain why the super-hyped film failed to appeal to the public. A look at some of the plausible reasons:
* The film offers very little for the youth and the masses. Among the ladies audience, the response is divided — 50% like the film while the other 50% find the theme of surrogate motherhood too avant-garde for comfort.
* Abbas Mustan are specialists of thrillers and snazzy, stylish films. An out-and-out family drama isn’t their cup of tea. The script, with its glaring loopholes, bears testimony to their lack of expertise at handling such fares.
* The subject was so delicate and serious that whereas the screenplay writers should have taken extra care, the impression one gets is that the writing is the biggest stumbling block. At the end of the film, when Preity Zinta gets neither Salman Khan nor their baby, the audience feels, she has been wronged. The writers might argue that it was meant to be that way — the audience sympathy was supposed to go to Preity Zinta. But herein lies the catch. While it is all very proper that the audience sympathy must go to Preity, in so going, the audience also feels that Salman Khan and Rani Mukerji have ‘used’ Preity for their gain. When the film ends, the public gets up with the feeling that Salman and Rani have ‘cheated’ Preity. And we’re talking of Salman and Rani, who are the film’s hero and heroine.
* Yet another theory has it that there’s no build-up to Rani’s insistence that her husband, Salman, sire a child through another woman. There’s just one scene between her and her grandfather-in-law, Amrish Puri, which leads her to suggest the extreme and completely unusual step to her hubby.
* The writers’ and directors’ recourse to the easy way out of difficult situations is evident in the gode-bharai scene in which Preity Zinta poses as Salman’s wife. To hide her identity, she is shown sitting through the function in a ghunghat. But barring that scene, Salman’s family is shown as being very modern and progressive. Salman’s wife is shown wearing jeans and T-shirts too. Would such a family let the wife sit in a ghunghat all through the function, even while posing for photographs? Even if the obvious answer is ‘no’, the writers/directors did not cook up a plausible reason to justify this. And this ghunghat is very important because, but for it, the secret pact between Salman, Rani and Preity would have been exposed. Treating such an important link in the drama so carelessly or casually with, what is known as, recourse to cinematic liberties, doesn’t quite work when we talk of an enlightened audience and very important or sensitive scenes.
* There’s another theory which says that the audience expects the secret pact to be exposed in front of the family in the climax. In place of the expectation of a melodramatic climax, the audience gets a rather tame and convenient mini-climax.
The film, despite the above theories, has managed to do very well so far in good cinemas in Bombay, Maharashtra and U.P. However, a big drop was noticed in U.P. on the 8th day.
YOU ASKED IT
Why are no films sustaining at the box-office? Has the film industry come under an evil eye?
– Why blame it on an evil eye? If producers concentrate on making proposals instead of films with tight scripts, what do you expect?
When will the first copy of Aamir Khan’s Lagaan be out? Is the film’s release on 1st June a certainty?
– The first copy of LAGAAN should be out next month. Aamir Khan will soon proceed to Madras for the film’s background score to be recorded by A.R. Rahman. As for the release date, June 1 is definite. Its music will be released on 6th April.
Why does someone not make a political thriller on the lines of Tehelka.com’s expose of the defence ministry?
– It will be too elitist a subject for a film even though, as news, it interests everyone.
Calcutta Cinema Employees’ Strike: Chances Of Materialisation 50:50
With not even a week to go before the cinema employees of West Bengal strike work in about 750 cinemas, the atmosphere in Calcutta and other centres of the circuit is a bit tense. If no amicable settlement is arrived at between the agitating employees and the Union (BMPEU) on the one hand and cinema owners on the other, cinemas may remain closed from 23rd March.
The BMPEU, pressing for a number of demands, including pay revision, has so far adopted a rigid stand. At a meeting between the Union and representatives of cinema owners, held earlier this week in Calcutta, an offer of a monthly hike in employees’ remuneration of Rs. 100 was turned down by the BMPEU. It demanded an increment of Rs. 400 per employee.
The possibility of the strike being called off at the eleventh hour is not ruled out. It is rumoured that the employees do not have the financial strength to go on a strike and are only trying to extract the maximum from cinema owners.
The West Bengal government, busy as it is with the ensuing Assembly elections, has also not been able to control the situation so far.
Observations.com
That film trade journals and the film industry share a love-hate relationship is common knowledge. Also well-known is the fact that producers and distributors generally inflate box-office collections of their films when supplying figures to trade papers. It then becomes the duty of the trade papers to counter-check the figures with the cinemas and publish the actual figures as against the fake/inflated ones provided by interested parties. While a few trade papers do everything within their means to present the true picture, other less scrupulous ones take the easy way out and print the incorrect figures supplied to them by the producers/distributors.
Chori Chori Chupke Chupke is not the usual film. With a court receiver appointed to monitor its release as well as business, the distributors, obviously, would not be interested in fudging figures, least of all in giving inflated figures to trade papers. For, if they did give incorrect and increased collections and if the courts were to rely on these inflated figures, they’d have to account for monies they never collected!
Resultantly, in place of inflated figures, the distributors of CCCC would be more interested that the actual figures got published in trade papers. Unlike in normal circumstances, when the distributor instructs the cinemas to not reveal the actual collections (of course, with trade papers having their own sources in cinemas, the distributor’s instructions often go unheeded — but, all the same, it’s the same story every week!), in the case of Chori Chori Chupke Chupke, the distributor would beg of the cinema to reveal the genuine collections. Very often, the trade paper wallahs impersonate the distributor’s men while trying to extract the true collections from the cinemas. To circumvent this, some distributors have wisened up to giving code words to cinemas. Only if a person repeats the code word is he let into the secret figure (that is, actual collections).
In the case of Chori Chori Chupke Chupke, the code word has given way to the ‘court word’! “Hello, I’m speaking on behalf of the court receiver!” This one sentence was enough to send shivers down the spines of cinema-wallahs who otherwise insist on the code word before revealing the true box-office collections. Why, this actually happened when a suburban cinema of Bombay casually mentioned to us that the 12 noon show of CCCC on Monday (12th March) was house-full. Fake information this — but, old habits die hard. Next, we telephoned the very cinema, posing as the court receiver’s assistant. And lo and behold! the cinema manager jumped in his seat and was oh-so-ready to help with “whatever figures you want”! As it turned out, the noon show had registered Rs. 11,000 against a capacity of Rs. 20,000 and odd. So much for the house-full collections!
There’s a joke doing the rounds of the industry. As against the congratulatory advertisements customarily issued by the various territorial distributors at the end of the first week in trade papers, the scenario in the case of CCCC will be just the reverse.
A typical congratulatory advertisement reads: “Congratulations XYZ (producer, artistes of the film etc.) on the grand success of ABC (name of film). We are confident of giving you overflow in the months to come. May our association remain lucky for all times to come.”
However, a typical advertisement of CCCC, goes the joke, would be issued by the distributors of the film and would read something like this: “Congratulations producer Nazim Rizvi on the AVERAGE BUSINESS of Chori Chori Chupke Chupke. We are confident, we will NOT pay you overflow. May our association NEVER extend to future films”!
– Komal Nahta
3-E
Education-Entertainment-Enlightenment
The Eternal Flop
Everyone knows what a damp squib Jackie Shroff’s Grahan has turned out to be. The long-in-the-making film, released a few weeks back, barely managed to run for as many days as the years it took to come to the screen. But guess what? Twenty-five years ago, the scene was no different. Another Grahan, made then with Nutan and Subhash Ghai in the lead, found itself eclipsed by poor collections. In fact, the Latest Position column in Film Information‘s issue corresponding to this week in 1976, has this to say: ‘Grahan could hardly cover the theatre hire in Bangalore’.
Now, what’s it they say about history repeating itself?
Whither Prints
Looks like the Bangladeshis are in love with our films. But that still is no excuse for what they have done — or rather, not done, so to speak. Way back in January, the film festival authorities in Bangladesh invited Hindi films for inclusion in the fete held in Dhaka. Our producers responded enthusiastically to the invitation sent by the neighbouring country. Soon, prints of 5-6 films, including Taal and Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai, were despatched to Dhaka. Little did the producers realise then that that could be the last they would see of those prints. For, over two months have passed since the films have been screened at the festival but the producers are yet to get their prints back. No amount of pleading with the Bangladeshi authorities has helped. Even the Film Federation of India (FFI) doesn’t seem interested in taking up the matter with the Bangladeshi authorities. Wonder, what the poor producers can do — besides cursing their fates, that is!
Kahani (Tera) Ghar (Mera) Ghar Ki
Director S. Priyadarsan, whose song picturisations are always very colourful and visually appealing, has made all his five songs in Ripples Picture Entertainment’s Yeh Tera Ghar Yeh Mera Ghar different from each other. The title song has been picturised on Sunil Shetty and Mahima Chaudhry on 20 different locations. A Govinda aala re song, showing street urchins breaking the dahi ki matki, was filmed in Hyderabad on Sunil, Mahima and Naghma (special appearance), besides 100 dancers and a crowd of 500 people. About 150 experts in matki-breaking were flown to Hyderabad from Bombay to partake in the song picturisation which needed them to form human pyramids, 100 feet high! There’s a romantic song which Priyadarsan has picturised on Mahima Chaudhry and — hold your breath! — Paresh Rawal. Another romantic duet was picturised on Sunil and Mahima on five sprawling sets including one of huge sail boats in a specially created pool depicting the sea. The fifth song, rendered by Shaan and Kay Kay, featured Sunil Shetty and Sanjay Narvekar, besides 15 gora dancers flown in from London, and model-actress Anupama Verma. This song was picturised on five sets erected at AVM and Vijaya Vauhini Studios in Madras.
Hrithik’s Holi Followed By Navratri
Guess, what Hrithik Roshan did on Holi? Not much, apparently. With wife Sussanne and a few friends in tow, Hrithik zipped off to Madh Island (in Bombay) to celebrate a quiet festival of colours, away from fans and the film industry. Now guess, what he did the next day? Celebrated Navratri!
Actually, Hrithik is participating in a 17-day shooting schedule at Mehboob Studios, of Mohan Kumar’s Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage, part of which is picturisation of a Navratri song. Penned by Dev Kohli and composed by Rajesh Roshan, the song goes: Ori gori chaloji chori chori, piya ke milan rut aayee re. Sung by Udit Narayan and Pamela, it is an item song in the film. The eight-minute song, picturised on Hrithik Roshan and Amisha Patel, involves several costume changes as it is spread over all nine nights of Dandiya Raas. Hrithik’s costumes are, as usual, designed by Rocky S. And Raju Khan is entrusted with the choreography. Producer Gautam Kumar is confident that the song will be a major highlight in the film. He also informs, “The current schedule involves shooting of a major portion of the first half of the film. The way things are going, we are certain to complete the film in time for a Diwali 2001 release.”
This means, it will be Hrithik’s second release this year, after Subhash Ghai’s Yaadein which will open all over on 27th July. His third and last release in 2001 would be Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, slated for a 14th December opening.
Titles To Match
Supposing one was asked to give film titles to the heroes and villains of the country in recent times, here’s how they’d read:
Bangaru Laxman: Khiladi 420.
V.V.S. Laxman: Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi.
George Fernandes: Main Azaad Hoon.
V.V.S. Laxman and Rahul Dravid: Jodi No. 1.
Indian cricket team: Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar.
Major Gen. M.S. Ahluwalia: Sharaabi.
Defence ministry: Hindustan Ki Kasam.
Mamata Banerjee: Nagin Ka Intaqam.
Tehelka.com: Mission: Impossible-2.
Atal Behari Vajpayee: Ek Bechara.
Jaya Jaitley: Paise Ki Gudia.
Jayalalitha, Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati, Uma Bharti: Manchali Ladkiyan.