IPL frenzy may hurt Bollywood box office

MUMBAI: IPL’s overwhelming response in terms of ratings may hurt Yashraj Films, considering it’s next big release Tashan, releasing 25 April will be pitted against this newly-popular form of cricket. The estimated Rs 30-crore movie, trade analysts and leading multiplex operators feel, may struggle to garner a big audience due to matches scheduled in the afternoon and prime time. This will have an impact on the 3 pm, 6 pm and 9 pm shows, which are the key drivers at the box office. Also with Friday, Saturday and Sunday becoming critical in terms of revenue exploitation, distributors are tense considering the cricket frenzy. Last weekend, while no major films were released, Ajay Devgun’s directoral debut U Me aur Hum fell to the 15-20% occupancy level, resulting in the trade branding it a flop. It had witnessed a poor opening at 30-35%. The Rs 25-crore film may bring in only Rs 9 crore through ticket sales. If one accounts for all the other exploitation rights, the film is expected to make a loss of Rs 8-9 crore. On the other hand, Krazzy 4 which opened with a 70% occupancy level, fell drastically to 20-25% in terms of collections towards the end of its first week. The grand IPL launch also did not help, despite no new release this week. The Rs 10 crore film is expected to make close to Rs 7-8 crore at the box office and a further Rs 5 crore via other rights such as satellite, music and the home market, resulting in a small profit of Rs 3-4 crore. The negative rub off on revenues of movies at the box office may extend to the Big B-starrer Bhootnath releasing on 9 May, which is the next big ticket movie in the offing. In the overseas market, U Me Aur Hum has beaten Krazzy 4, unlike the domestic box office. Krazzy 4 grossed close to Rs 3 crore in 3 days in the overseas markets as opposed to U Me Aur Hum clocking Rs 6 crore in the same period. The majority of these revenues came in from North America and UK. According to Tam Media Research the inaugural match in Bangalore between Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders and Vijay Mallya’s Bangalore Royal Challengers on Friday fetched a rating of 8.21, with 12.5-million people tuning in to watch the match. The following two matches played between Chennai Super Kings Vs Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals Vs Delhi Daredevils, clocked 4.97 TRP and 5.58 TRP, respectively. As the matches move into the second stage shortly, Bollywood is indeed going to face stiff competition from the cricket-cum-entertainment bonanza that IPL seems to offer. The year has been dry for Bollywood, with only the Saif Ali Khan-Bipasha starrer Race putting up a good show. Bollywood has yet to see a mega blockbuster film at the box office in 2008.

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Salman Khan to Play Nanasaheb Peshwa ?????

Sushmita Sen is on a man hunt... literally speaking. Her maiden venture has run into several setbacks and the actress is now turning to close friend Salman Khan with the thought of casting him for the role of Nanasaheb Peshwa in her Jhansi Ki Rani Laxmibai.

Sushmita feels the role is very prominent and Salman fits the bill. Hence she is in talks with the actor about the same. Salman has liked the character and he is quite thrilled about the role.

“Although Salman is yet to sign on the dotted line, he is looking forward to playing a historical icon like Nanasaheb Peshwa. He will have a completely different look for which he is growing his hair.” says a friend close to the actor.

Sushmita is looking forward to sign some more biggies for other prominent characters of the film. Earlier she had approached Akshay Kumar for the role of Tatya Tope. It is also believed that Sushmita had offered a prominent character to Shah Rukh Khan too, but the Badshah refused it due to date problems.

It can be recalled that before this Salman was offered to etch out the historic character of Bajiroa by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. He was also the first choice for Akbar in Ashutosh Govarikar’s historial love story Jodha Akbar. But this time it seems that Salman might take up this offer seriously.

tags: Jhansi Ki Rani Laxmibai, Sushmita Sen

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Malaika, Arbaaz heading for divorce?

Tension and irritation has started to haunt the life of ten-years long happily married life of Arbaaz Khan and Malaika Arora Khan. They are heading towards divorce.

The couple had again showed that divorce is the end result of a successful wife and a failure husband. Malaika is a successful actress and made a mark in Bollywood by grooving in some hit item numbers. She has come a long way from Dil Se's Chaiya Chaiya to Welcome's Hoth Rasiley. Whereas, Arbaaz is still struggling to establish himself. He had made his acting debut in Daraar but for the last 12 years, he is doing only cameos. Malaika is a well known face of Bollywood and television. She had ventured into small screen and is hosting reality shows.

On being asked about their split up, Arbaaz and Malaika remained tightlipped on the issue and were not willing to speak about their private matter. Undoubtedly, their divorce will affect their son Arhaan. The news of their spilt up sounds surprising especially at the time when they are together for the first time to play reel life couple in Kannada film Shaadi Ke Side Effects. Hope, the news is another publicity gimmick.

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Bollywood returns to Kashmir

Srinagar: Bollywood and Kashmir had been companions for most of the 60s and 70s, but due to the growth of militancy, film shoots moved to international destinations.

Now, with peace gradually returning to Kashmir, the Hindi film industry is here again.

As Bollywood returns to its favorite destination, training camera on the sylvan surroundings, this time, the major attraction seems to be the tulip garden.

The State Government, which recently opened this garden, seems happy with the response.

“It is good that Bollywood is coming here. It will send out the right signal and people will forget Holland now and come instead to this place,” said Director of Floriculture, M Y Naqqash.

SYLVAN SURROUNDINGS: For Bollywood, Kashmir's major attraction now is its new tulip garden.

The film industry is once again shooting romantic numbers in Kashmir. The latest one features Shatrugan Sinha's son, newcomer Luv Sinha, and Kashmiri actress Fareena Wazir.

Director Raj Kanwar. who had been a frequent visitor to Kashmir, is ecstatic about the surroundings and the newly-developed tulip gardens.

“I have been coming to Kashmir as a child and this place is so good for filming,” said Kanwar. “I am introducing new actors, the star cast includes Rishi Kapoor, Rekha and Hema Malani. Hope more and more people, who earlier wanted to go to Hollywood will come into this garden to shoot love songs.”

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Power of ten: Salman Khan's game show on Sony TV

Actor Salman Khan has been signed up to host a reality show on Sony T.V called as “ Power of ten”.

Apparently, Salman Khan has been offered Rs 90 crores to host 100 episodes of the reality show, which will start airing in June.

The show consists of contestants will be quizzed on answers to questions on a nation wide survey. A correct guess will result in their prize money multiply by ten.

The show will run in the following way. Prior to its going on air the channel will conduct a series of polls on issues concerning the nation. These will be collected in a bank. Then during the show, each participant will be asked to guess the answer with the most percentage of votes.

Participants can reach Rs 10 million by answering five questions correctly on the show. The show is positioned as five questions for Rs 1 crore.

The show is an adaptation of a U.S. show hosted by Drew Carey for C.B.S television. It will be produced locally by Synergy communications limited.

It is positioned by Sony T.V. in direct competition to Star TV’s “Kya aap panchvi Pass se Tez hein” hosted by Shah Rukh Khan and Indian version of Fear factor hosted by Akshay Kumar.

Come next few months and it will be the battle of Bollywood stars hosting reality shows on t.v.

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