‘My Name Is Khan’ Could Face Loss of 45 Crores
Bollywood’s most awaited movie ‘My Name Is Khan’ can possibly face big financial loss of up to 45 crores due to the struggle between protesting Shiv Sena workers and the Mumbai police over the release of the film.
Shah Rukh Khan starrer movie is set to release on this Friday, 12 February. The total budget of the film is around Rs 45 crore and its distribution rights are sold to FOX Star Entertainment for Rs 85 crore.
‘My Name Is Khan’ became the subject of rage of Shiv Sena due to the comments of Shah Rukh Khan in which he favored the selection of Pakistani cricket players for IPL-III.
The agitating Shiv Sena workers attacked violently on the advance booking of the movie. The Mumbai police have arrested over 1,200 protesting Shiv Sena workers.
Around 63 theatres in Mumbai have stopped the advance booking on Wednesday. This could lead to a dull opening for the most-awaited Bollywood film of this year.
According to the multiplex association and film analysts, Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra together contribute a third of the domestic box office collections for big Hindi films. They are unfortunately expecting a huge financial loss in the coming weekend.
‘My Name Is Khan’ will be released with over 2,000 prints and around 300 prints are being released for Maharshtra alone.
A top executive of a leading multiplex in Mumbai said, “If the average footfall in cinema theatre drops to under 35% this weekend in Mumbai coupled with anticipated disruptions and fear among cine goers in Maharashtra, we are looking at a potential loss of Rs 40-45 crore to the film business.”
He added, “Losses on account of the damage to the publicity materials of the film and attacks to various theatres in the past few days have also been factored in.”
Many film exhibitors like Cinemax, Big Cinema, PVR, Inox, etc have stopped advance bookings after incidents of violence and losses to cinema properties in the suburbs of Mumbai.
According to film analysts, any big Hindi film tends to recover almost half its cost in the first three days of the release.
Mumbai-based film distributor said, “My Name Is Khan, with its global release and hype could easily gross over Rs 100 crore within the first week. But with an atmosphere of fear prevailing in Mumbai and elsewhere, a bulk of collections will not come, causing loss to the production, distribution and exhibition business.”
A film analyst said, to compensate the expected loss of business, ‘M N I K’ will make a strong distribution network in overseas markets. Over 100 prints are earmarked for each of the United States, the United Kingdom and the markets in the Gulf region and Southeast Asia. Smaller number of prints will go to other parts of the world including Europe and the African continent.
Related posts:
