It wasn’t completely unexpected but yet, nobody thought, it would happen. The release of Jersey was postponed for the second time in four months — this time by a week, to April 22. The Shahid Kapoor starrer was slated to hit the screens this week, on April 14, with K.G.F. Chapter 2 (dubbed) but looking to the latter film’s unprecedented advance booking, it became obvious to the producers of Jersey that their film would neither get enough screens nor the optimum number of shows. Therefore, they announced that they had postponed the film’s release by a week. Instead of April 14, it will now reach the cinemas on April 22.
This is the second time that Jersey, a remake of the Telugu blockbuster of the same name, has been postponed right in the week of release. It was earlier scheduled to release in the cinemas on December 31, 2021 but was postponed just three days before the appointed date because of the growing number of Omicron cases then. The decision couldn’t have been more right because soon after the postponement of the release was announced, cinemas started to shut down in one state after the other because of the rapid rate at which the Coronavirus’ newest strain was spreading. Although the decision to postpone Jersey this time was taken last night (April 10), the announcement was made only this morning.
The trade hailed the decision of the postponement of Jersey as exhibitors across the country were tearing their hair apart trying to accommodate the three releases of this week — K.G.F. Chapter 2 (dubbed), Jersey and Raw (Beast) (dubbed) — even as RRR and The Kashmir Files are still running in the cinemas. The situation has eased dramatically with Jersey having moved ahead by a week.
Frankly, the producers of Jersey underestimated the power of the K.G.F. brand. They should never have announced its release on the same day as the K.G.F. sequel. For those who came in late, the producers of Jersey lost no time in announcing its release on April 14 once Aamir Khan announced (in January this year) that he would not be releasing his Laal Singh Chaddha alongside K.G.F. Chapter 2 as a lot of work still remained to be done to complete the visual effects in his film. But while the makers of Jersey erred at that time, they had the good sense to not make it an ego issue this time. Many producers would not have exhibited the courage to postpone their film at the last minute, for fear that it would send a signal to the trade that they lacked confidence in their film. But the producers of Jersey did not bother about what the trade would interpret their postponement as. They did what they thought would be in the best interest of their film. It’s a different thing that the trade also took the postponement in the right spirit.