What started it, is it right, or wrong? Here is your chance to vent!!!
In the meantime this could lead to losses up to 45 crores for the film as per the Financial Express. A big price to pay no matter how you cut it!
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Agitations-over-My-Name-Is-Khan-could-lead-to-Rs-45-cr-loss/578242/
New Delhi: The tussle between agitating Shiv Sena workers and the Mumbai police over the release of the Shahrukh Khan starrer My Name Is Khan is likely to cause financial losses to the tune of Rs 40-45 crore for producers, distributors and film exhibitors.
Made at a budget of around Rs 45 crore and sold to Fox Star Studios for Rs 85 crore, My Name Is Khan has been subjected to anger and wrath of Shiv Sena because of the comments made by Shah Rukh Khan in favour of selection of Pakistani cricket players for IPL-III.
On day 1 of the advanced bookings for the upcoming film, the Mumbai police arrested over 1,200 agitating Shiv Sena workers. Most of the 63 theatres in Mumbai stopped the advance booking on Wednesday and with hundreds of them across the state following suit; it could lead to a dismal opening for the most-awaited Bollywood film of this year.
The multiplex association and film analysts say as Maharashtra and Mumbai together contribute a third of the domestic box office collections for big Hindi films, they are staring at a huge financial loss in the coming weekend.
My Name Is Khan will be released on Friday with over 2,000 prints. Around 300 prints are being released for Maharshtra alone. “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,” a top executive of a leading multiplex in Mumbai said.
“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,” the executive said.
Most of the film exhibitor chains, including Cinemax, Big Cinema, PVR, Inox, etc have stopped advance bookings within hours on Wednesday after incidents of violence and losses to cinema properties reported 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.
“Maharashtra and Mumbai together account of a third of the country’s box office collections. 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...
6 comments:
As I have been trying to assimilate all the recent shameful events that are unfolding in India, I feel that the larger issue here is much more than just a SRK-Shiv Sena fracas. This crisis is just a symbol of everything that is currently going wrong in my religion and my country. Notwithstanding all the legitimate concerns that people have about radical Islamic elements, the extreme right rabid Hindu fundamentalism is in no way any less perilous. It has managed to sneak upon us unawares and is now rearing its ugly head to such an extent that the normal fabric of life of an ordinary citizen is in danger of being disrupted. The political parties are all but choosing to ignore these elements; it is all about tactical political gain to the exclusion of everything else. The hooligans are proclaiming diktats to the common man everyday. Since when have I been forced to accept them as an arbiter of my morality? Since when in my own country am I not allowed to wear a skirt, go to a pub, watch a movie, or celebrate a Valentine’s day dinner with a loved one? Where and when does this fanaticism stop? Is this the contemporary modern India we all had dreamt of?
For all my rantings and ravings, the irony of it all is that I am also a part of the problem. I am the new breed of educated, liberal, bourgeois Indian who is too self-centred, capitalist and coward to do anything about these issues. My self-preservation instincts are so strong that I will choose to remain a mute spectator and the rabid fanatics will take away everything of my country that I hold dear; my freedom of thought, expression, and speech. All we will be left with at the end of this insanity is a crippled democracy, lacking all ability to address our most serious problems. That is definitely not a recipe for a modern and shining India in a competitive world.
Minnie - words from the heart there! Appreciate your sharing these with us. Why do these growing pains for India include fanaticism? I thought that was part and parcel of poor education and no development. So somewhere, there are a number of people who are left behind and are sharing in the dream of middle class India. Then it is very easy to manipulate their hurt sentiments for political gain.
We have only cynicism in politics, no idealism left anymore. I do not see a solution anytime soon.
From the man himself:
http://twitter.com/iamsrk
In berlin. from the grand hotel & premier in abu dhabi.sand to snow. the journey has begun...for Khan. hope it ends well & peacefully.
ironic & sad. a film made for world peace has led to so much angst in my own house.my city.my country. let not anyone be hurt is all i pray
do i say things which r wrong. my wife tells me so. do i not make myself clear.some friends feel so.am i political or politically incorrect?
i am shah rukh. age 44. favourite colours :black & white. job : performing atriste. likes : to make people smile. profession : father.
nationality: indian. born in : delhi. owe everything to: mumbai. loves: my country india, my family & freedom. desire: entertain all.
hate: anyone or anything that threatens my country. wish : world peace, education for all, goodness & no poverty.
i have never hurt anybody's sentiments..religious,nationalist or personal wittingly. i am pro relationships but not at cost of my nation.
writing not to justify but to spell out clearly who i am & my beliefs. seems otherwise i am misunderstood. should i write in block letters ?
dont want mayhem anger and violence cos of our beautiful film...which talks about repairing a bruised & divided world.
feel awful that balasahib & udhav have misconstrued my words. the reactions of the sena workers seems to make me believe that.
i may not have the same ideologies as the sena but on the question of me being a patriot, i dont think there should be any confusion.
i hope my tweets (using the word first time) clear this cloud of confusion. i hope peace prevails & the city is at rest.
nobody wants the mumbaikers or their property hurt & destroyed. least of all me.
this also is the last time i clarify or say anything on this topic. this is not a justification, its just reiterating the facts.
i want to enjoy my film everywhere. i want to enjoy it within myself. and to sickos who think this is for publicity..2 words SHUT UP !!
...Contd.
anyone asks me about this issue anymore...they can read my tweets. now wot happens with the releasethe film, is the films fate.
if my partners lose so be it. if i lose so be it.my stardom is transient.my integrity in non negotiable...my being indian unquestionable.
if my partners lose so be it. if i lose so be it.my stardom is transient.my integrity in non negotiable...my being indian unquestionable.
my name is shah rukh khan... and i think it is more than just a name. my mother & father had told me so & my son & daughter believe it so.
p.s...to all channels translating this...please get it right without adding the dramatic music. drama leave it to the films.
white snow shining. black coffee steaming. sleep depraved.greying stubble.rave reviews. journey about to end. new beginnings.missing home.
hope peace prevails. hope misunderstandings get cleared. hope nobody is hurt. hope all leaders & activists have largesse of heart. hope...
i also hope with wot i write & say i have not hurt anybody's sensibilities or sentiments. my intention is never to do so.
i have no ego or false sense of pride. my words have been benign & without ill will to any person (s) or my nation.
i have the courage of conviction by my side. i explain becos better to do that, than create aggression & division in my country.
There r good & bad people in all groups or places. for the acts of bad by some we cannot generalise on grounds of physical boundaries.
we have bad ppl in india,pakistan and everywhere else. nobody including me stands by anyone who is bad or resorts to inhuman acts.
why should we have this demarcation permeate in fields of art,sports,culture and otherwise normal things. is that a wrong way to think??
i think these conspiracy theories on art,sports etc being used to fund untoward activities is completely off the mark.
writing all this so that i know that i havent really said anything bad in the last few days to anyone & it is clear now & not muddled.
am i getting paranoid ??? of my own words and interviews. my english teacher told me not to write too much..wife says not to say too much.
absolutely last thought (In 3 parts of course): appeal to all to understand that mumbai is the gateway of india to the world.
2. film industry is india's cultural ambassador all around the globe.all of us have the responsibilty to protect the fair name of mumbai...
3. mumbai's legendary film industry & its spirit of pluralism and tolerance. i do this all around the world & can do so wherever needed.
now please send me a nice joke...otherwise i will keep on explaining my beliefs. need to go and enjoy berlin festival and its hospitality.
thanx all around the world. for listening to me. i hope it finds its way to goodness of heart in mumbai.now better go & do press stuff here.
love u all...will meet again. next time round will be happy i hope and will tell u about the berlinale. thanx once again for listening.
A very sane and Balanced article in the Economist:
A Bollywood song and dance
In praise of a film star who has seen off the violent mob running India's commercial capital
LAW-ABIDING Mumbaikars, as residents of India’s tinsel-town are known, celebrated the release of Bollywood’s latest offering with gusto this week. The film, “My name is Khan”, depicts the fictional trials of Rizwan Khan, an Indian Muslim with Asperger’s syndrome, living in California. Shortly after September 11th 2001 Mr Khan’s six-year-old son is lynched in a racist reprisal. This leads him to track down President George Bush and tell him: “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist.”
Despite mixed reviews, the film generated $18m in ticket sales in its first three days, doubling the previous record for an Indian film. That was also despite a slow start in Mumbai. Of 63 cinemas due to release the film on February 12th only 13 did so. They were deterred, for that day only, by threats from a gangsterish political party, Shiv Sena, which controls the city’s municipal council and is the main opposition in the state of Maharashtra. A Hindu-nationalist outfit, and champion of Maharashtra’s Marathi speakers, Shiv Sena had a grudge against the film’s leading man, Shah Rukh Khan, one of Bollywood’s biggest stars. Mr Khan, a Muslim, and a co-owner of a cricket team, the Kolkata Knight Riders, had offended Shiv Sena’s leader, Bal Thackeray, by speaking up for some Pakistani cricketers disgracefully excluded from the Indian Premier League. Unless Mr Khan apologised, Mr Thackeray swore to disrupt the film’s release.
That should have been enough to make Mr Khan grovel. With an army of ethnic-Maratha hooligans, known as Shiv Sainiks, at his disposal, Mr Thackeray has terrorised Mumbai’s teeming streets for four decades. Non-Maratha migrants, Muslims and foreign cricketers, Pakistani and Australian, have all been targets of his tirades. His followers have been implicated in hundreds of murders, notably in a 1993 anti-Muslim pogrom. Yet Mr Thackeray has hardly been censured. The Congress party, which rules Maharashtra and heads the national coalition government, is loth to upset him. So are Mumbai’s tycoons and film stars. But Mr Khan refused to bend the knee. Then the state government, for once, swore to keep order. And Mr Thackeray backed down.
This excellent turn of events, however, invited a question: how is it that liberal, secular India has suffered Mr Thackeray and his thugs for so long? One reason is an abiding sensitivity towards language-based agitations—after a spate, in the 1950s, that posed the greatest threat to India’s survival. It led to a reorganisation of the state’s provinces into linguistically more homogeneous units: including, in 1960, the creation of mainly Marathi-speaking Maharashtra. Opposed by India’s then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, the arrangement has proved remarkably effective. Yet Nehru’s fear that the reorganisation would harden regionalist sentiments has also been partly justified.
MORE IN FOLLOWING POST
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15545784
Mr Thackeray, who founded his party in 1966, began by attacking poor south-Indian migrants to Bombay, as Mumbai was then called. Never mind that Mumbai was barely a Maratha city at all. Almost a third of its population was non-Maratha then; over half is today. Its wealth was created largely by Gujarati, Rajasthani and Parsee traders.
India’s democracy has spawned many opportunist outfits of the Shiv Sena type, fermenters of ethnic, religious or caste-based grievance. But it is also in part self-correcting. No communal interest is big enough to secure state-level or national power. To forge alliances extremists have to moderate. For Mr Thackeray, this meant softening his pro-Maratha oratory; but, alas, not the anti-Muslim slant he shared with his main ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). During the 1990s the two parties won power in Maharashtra—which allowed Mr Thackeray to rename Bombay—and, as part of a broader coalition, in Delhi.
Yet their Hinduist scheme now looks stunted: the BJP and Shiv Sena have lost successive state-level and general elections. A firebrand nephew of Mr Thackeray has meanwhile formed a breakaway party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). In response, Shiv Sena has resumed its pro-Maratha attack. Mr Thackeray has thundered against India’s greatest cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar, a Mumbaikar who says he’s Indian first, and its richest man, Mukesh Ambani, who says Mumbai is for all. But this cannot disguise Shiv Sena’s slide. Congress has hastened it, partly by turning a blind eye to the crimes of the MNS, which, by splitting the Shiv Sena’s vote, helped Congress win the most recent state election. This reflects badly on India’s ruling party but is in fact grimly consistent with its long reluctance to enforce the law against Shiv Sena—a big reason for the impunity Mr Thackeray has enjoyed.
My name is Gandhi and I am a future prime minister
Prone to communal conniption, India needs enlightened leadership, which Congress has often failed to provide. Instead of defending India’s liberal traditions against the chauvinists, it has tended to copy them. In Maharashtra, for example, it has adopted a less rabid brand of nativism than Shiv Sena’s. In neighbouring Gujarat, torn by Hindu-Muslim strife, it has preached “soft Hindutva”, a milder version of the BJP’s hate-filled creed.
So a recent visit to Mumbai by Rahul Gandhi, Nehru’s great-grandson and Congress’s next leader, was significant. He had spoken up for Mumbai’s battered migrants, prompting the Shiv Sainiks to threaten protests. Yet, unabashed, he came and took a train-ride through the city. For some who dream of Congress improving under Mr Gandhi, this was promising.
But it could not deny Shah Rukh Khan the spotlight. A likeable superstar, he has a record of fighting liberal causes. After Pakistani terrorists ravaged Mumbai in 2008, he sought to avert an anti-Muslim backlash. He is close to Congress, and said to be mulling a political career. Unusually in India, which has a history of venal, useless actor-politicians, that might not be a bad thing.
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