Every Bollywood fan is waiting for the release of two certain films on November 9th with ever growing excitement and now one of the two films causing all this excitement, Saawariya, is going to have its premiere two days early on November 7th! Usually films have the premiere on Thursday so that if the public and critics hate it (doubtful!) the impact is less.
However, Uday Singh CEO of Sony Pictures said, “But we’ve enough faith in our product not to be bothered by such considerations. To my mind Sanjay Leela Bhansali is the finest filmmaker in this country. With Diwali on Nov 9 and people being busy preparing for puja in their homes, we didn’t want to inconvenience our premiere guests. We aren’t scared of showing the film two days in advance. We’ve seen the product and we now know Sanjay has given us a superlative film.”
Adding, “In fact, we were keen on hosting the premiere of Saawariya in New York, and we didn’t mind doing the NY premiere almost a week before release. However, the special effects delayed the completion and the NY idea had to be dropped.”
The other film that has Bollywood fans in a tizzy is Om Shanti Om starring Shah Rukh Khan. “During the festive mood we believe people are ready to go out and spend money on two movies. And it doesn’t matter to us which film they see first as long as we bring them out of their homes. Having said that, let me remind people that we announced our release date in the trade a year back. If suddenly competition creeps up on us, so be it. They’re two completely different films. And the market is large enough for both. Shah Rukh Khan is undoubtedly the king, whereas Sanjay Bhansali a unique creator. Maybe it’s time for audiences to dig deep into their wallets during the festive season,” he said.
Sony plans to release a record number of prints of Saawariya both in India but especially overseas. “We’re primarily targeting the film at NRI audiences abroad, plus a limited art house release for non-Indians. If that works, we’ll pump up the release but no chances of dubbing ‘Saawariya’. Today’s audiences are far more tolerant of subtitles, what with their eyes constantly multi-tasking on the TV screen,” said Singh.
We certainly cannot wait to see Sonam, Rani, Salman and of course Ranbir in this highly anticipated film and being the fans we are, we will certainly be lined up outside the cineplex on November 9th with many of us running to see Om Shanti Om that same day!
