Range De Basanthi did release in January 2006 and it went on to become a huge hit. How many Januarys (or is it Januaries?) have passed since then?
Hope Guru does well. I really didn't get that urge to watch the movie... it seemed a given that I will watch it. But it slowly is sinking in that this is by Mani Rathnam!! That alone guarantees a good movie and a superb background score!! 32 hours to go!! --- Gopal Srinivasan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > AB-Ash vs January jinx > - First weekend advance rush ratifies Guru’s > selective release strategy > PRATIM D. GUPTA > Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai in Guru > > Will Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai finally get > as much attention on screen as they get > off it? Will Mani Ratnam finally score at the > box-office with an original Hindi film? Will Guru > finally break the January jinx plaguing Bollywood > for the past few years? > > If the advance bookings for the first weekend at the > Calcutta theatres are anything to go by, > the answer to all the above questions is “yes”. > Within a couple of hours of the advances > opening on Wednesday, 50 per cent of tickets for the > seven-shows-a-day weekend had gone at INOX > (Forum) and no less than nine shows block-booked. > > Adopting a strategy strictly against the Bollywood > ploy of flooding the market with hundreds of > prints, Guru’s city distributor Shree Venkatesh > Films is releasing the film with as few as 12 > prints. “We are very confident about Guru and do not > want to exhaust the business in a couple > of weeks by releasing the film with lots of prints,” > discloses Mahendra Soni of Shree Venkatesh > Films. “We plan to add more prints every week, as > the word-of-mouth spreads,” he adds. In 2006, > only Vivah had tried this strategy and the Rajshri > production went on to become a big hit, > growing stronger with every passing week. > > Guru is an acid test for the Abhishek-Ash pair which > has had a 100 per cent failure record (on > screen) and even constant talk of marriage couldn’t > salvage the grandiose Umrao Jaan a couple > of months ago. The same holds for Mani Ratnam, whose > Dil Se and Yuva couldn’t find favour with > the audiences. “That is all history,” says Vikas > Syal, general manager of INOX (Forum). “The > Guru promos have created a lot of buzz and it will > get a great opening.” > > The reason for the box-office rush, however, can lie > more in the lack than the longing. “There > has been no major release since Bhagam Bhag > (December 22),” points out Prashant Shrivastava of > 89 Cinemas. “People have now got into the habit of > watching new Bollywood movies every week; so > the eagerness to catch Guru is quite obvious.” > > But AB-Ash have less than two weeks to deliver > before the starry Salaam-e-Ishq arrives on > January 25 > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited
