Pooja Entertainment and Emmay Entertainment’s Bellbottom will release in cinemas on August 19 even if cinemas in the state of Maharashtra are not permitted to reopen by then. The Maharashtra government was expected to allow cinemas to reopen in yesterday’s (August 2) order but that was not to be. While the news that cinemas in the state would have to remain closed was met with a lot of bitterness in trade circles, the question uppermost in the minds of the trade people since yesterday was: Will Bellbottom keep its date with the audience or will its release get postponed once again? It may be recalled that Bellbottom, starring Akshay Kumar, was first announced for release on July 27. However, the film was moved ahead to August 19 as cinemas in some states, mainly Maharashtra, were not allowed to reopen in July. With cinemas still closed in Maharashtra, it was felt that the producers of Bellbottom might feel inclined to postpone its theatrical release over again.
But the producers of the film were determined to convince the trade that they meant business this time. While announcing that they would go ahead with the date for release of the film in cinemas, they symbolically even unlocked cinemas at the film’s trailer launch event today (August 3). Akshay Kumar along with representatives of three national multiplex chains viz. PVR, Inox and Cinepolis and some single-screen cinema owners held a big key in their hands to indicate that the time to unlock cinemas had come.