'KURBAAN' TO EXHIBIT ON 1,700 SCREENS
By Eye TV India Bureau
In the News
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'Kurbaan' a love story costing Rs 500 million to the Karan Johar banner is releasing coming Friday, November 20, 2009, across more than 1,700 screens globally, of which 1,500 are in India, with the rest split across 24 countries. CEO of UTV Motion Pictures, Siddharth Roy Kapur, claims it to be the biggest release ever for any Hindi film. "With 1,300 physical prints and 800 digital ones, this film is fast becoming synonymous with box-office success." Fully conscious of the risks of overcrowding, Johar decided not to release their film along with Akshay Kumar starrer 'De Dana Dan' and advanced their release from November 27 to November 20, 2009. Karan Johar has been promoting this love story set against the backdrop of global terrorism. Kareena plays Avantika, a teacher from a University in Delhi, who moves base to New York due to a personal emergency. During this period, she meets a professor - Ehsaan Khan, played by Saif Ali Khan. Both fall in love and get married. All hell breaks loose when a series of incidents suck Avantika and Ehsaan into a vortex of danger and intrigue.
Interestingly, a new trend of big releases is being witnessed. They need extra money spending on creating the hype as the first weekend collection is close to 30% of total collections, and that is about as much as 60% of the total returns. So, a lot depends on the 'opening' of the film, and a wider release with a tight timeline would ensure faster and more returns at the box-office. Besides, there is the piracy issue, which affects all movies within the first 48 hours of a release. And a wider release definitely helps, especially in the overseas markets. Kapur says that their widest release has been 'Race', which they distributed with 1,400 screens, of which 1,100 were in India. The movie saw a first weekend collection of Rs 34 crore (gross India).
