Kamal Haasan talks about his revised release plans of Vishwaroop

Kamal Haasan had to postpone the release of his ambitious new Hindi-Tamil-Telugu tri-lingual Vishwaroop to sort out the deadlock with film exhibitors regarding the Direct To Home (DTH) premiere of the film. Now that it has been resolved Kamal Haasan spoke exclusively to MovieChakkar on the new revised release plans. Said the maverick actor-director-producer, “The Hindi version is being released on February 1. It cannot be released on Jan 25 along with the Tamil and Telugu versions because Race 2 is releasing the same day. I feel the Hindi version Vishwaroop would gather more boxoffice strength from the week-long release advantage that its Tamil and Telugu versions would have.” As far as the DTH telecast is concerned Kamal Haasan shared, “The South Indian distributors and exhibitors have requested a 4-day headstart for the theatrical release. I made it easier for them. The DTH telecast would now be on Saturday 2 February following the theatrical release on Friday Jan 25.” In the Hindi belt the distributors won’t relent over the DTH issue. Said Kamal, “In the South I’ve already won over the distributors. I guess the South chamber is more sensible than its Northern counterpart. So the Hindi DTH telecast would be as stipulated by the North Indian multiplexes. They don’t want DTH before four weeks after the theatrical release. We have to go by their stipulation.” Kamal Haasan is as confident of the DTH premiere strategy as he was before he was compelled to bow down. “Look at the success through the DTH of the new Richard Gere film Arbitrage. It has collected double its theatre collections on DTH. DTH is the future of cinema. The postponement of my film’s release gave me an opportunity to convince my film fraternity of the feasibility of DTH. Unfortunately the advance bookings had already opened when we postponed. We had to say sorry to the disappointed patrons. But I have to tell you, the advance bookings were unprecedented. No one refrained from going to the theatres because of the DTH. The panic regarding DTH is prevalent all over the world.” Regarding the email that Kamal Haasan has sent to his all-India distributors Balaji Films the actor clarified, “I never said we’ll wait for six weeks. I said we’ll wait for as long as the North Indian theatres stipulate.” Kamal Haasan’s Los Angeles premiere is now on January 24.