JTHJ and SOS incurs loss on Bal Thackeray’s death

By: Bollywood Mantra Staff on 21st November 2012

"Jab Tak Hai Jaan" and "Son of
Sardar" had an ugly spat just before the release of their film on the same day,
on Diwali (13^th of November).

"JabTak Hai Jaan" was to release in
2000 theatres and "Son of Sardar" in 500 theatres. However, Ajay Devgan
Productions took Yash Raj Films to court over them allegedly trying to stop the
release of "SOS".

However, what they did not see coming
was the death of Bal Thackeray on Sunday. Bal Thackeray the most prominent
leader of Shiv Sena died on the 17^th of November, 2012.

This led to a shut down on Sunday.
Maharashtra came to a standstill on this day with all the cinemas being closed.
Shoots of television serials were cancelled; entertainment channels were
blacked out by the cable operators in certain parts of Mumbai. Film shoots to
be done with on that day had also been rescheduled to a later date.

The shoot of two of Karan Johar's
films "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani" and "Ungli", Sanjay Leela Bhansali's film "Ram
Leela" and Ram Gopal Verma's film on 26/11 also had to be pushed back to
another date due to the mishap.

This upheaval in Maharashtra led to a
great loss for the two big budget films. An Exhibitor-distributor Akshaye Rathi
said "We are expecting losses of roughly Rs. 3-4 cr for JTHJ and Rs. 2.5 cr for
SOS."

These two films have been the two of
the biggest releases of this year and a complete shut down on Sunday incurred
heavy losses. However, as there are no other releases until the 30^th of
November, with "Talaash", the two films are expected to make up for the lost
business in the coming days.

Exhibitors who have incurred losses
are greatly saddened by this development. Girish Wankhede, who is the deputy GM
of Cinemax India have said "Over Saturday and Sunday, we lost Rs. 2 cr in
total."

Regular customers of Big Cinemas, who
had already bought the tickets for Sunday had been given choices of either
asking for a refund or watching the movie on another convenient date, informed
Ashish Saxena of Big Cinemas.
On whether the cinemas would be
reopening the next day, nobody could give a confirmation as it all depended on
the instructions that would be provided by the police.

Ashish Saxena, reiterated this saying
"It depends on the instructions we get from the police."
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