Bhushan Kumar clears the air on Kajraare controversy

By Nikhil Ramsubramaniam -

November 16, 2010 - 12:00 AM IST

Bhushan Kumar clears the air on Kajraare controversy

T-Series is known to release its films with much fanfare. Hence, it came as a shock to a lot of people when T-Series' film Kajraare directed by Pooja
Bhatt and starring Himesh Reshammiya released all of a sudden in just 2 theatres (that too in matinee shows) on Oct 15. Since then a lot of tongues started
wagging and speculations began on why such a move was taken. While none of the parties involved commented on the situation then, T-Series' head-honcho
Bhushan Kumar explains his rationale behind this move, "It was a very calculated call taken by us. Today movie-watching has become an expensive proposition
and if the audience doesn't feel excited about watching a particular movie, then they would not go to the theatres and spend money. A recent example is
Jhootha Hi Sahi, which despite having names like John Abraham, A.R.Rahman associated with the project, failed to generate any interest whatsoever
among the audience. Hardly anyone went to watch the film. The result was a big loss for the makers who in my opinion may find it difficult to even recover
the publicity costs from India theatrical collections. With Kajraare too, keeping Himesh's current market standing, I was not very sure about people
going to the theatres in large numbers to watch the film. I am very proud of the film, it's a very nice film and all of us have worked really hard on it and
I felt that maximum people should see the film hence we approached a leading TV channel (COLORS) and sold them the satellite rights. The film will have its
TV premiere next month (December) on COLORS."

But wasn't Mahesh Bhatt and Pooja Bhatt upset with this decision? "Mr. Mahesh Bhatt was completely in sync with me. In fact he only suggested that we should
go ahead with the satellite release as he also knew that at this point of time, people are not really excited to go to the theatre and watch a Himesh
Reshammiya starrer. Hence, it's better to have a technical release as a formality and then release the film via satellite medium."

The move however didn't go down too well with Himesh Reshammiya who seems to have had a fall out with Bhushan Kumar. Commenting on this, Bhushan says, "To be
honest, no artist would be ready to accept that his market value / market standing has gone down. The same is the case with Himesh too. But it was not that
he was not kept in the loop about this decision. In fact two weeks before the release, we explained to him that since the promos aren't creating any buzz and
even the music too isn't doing well, we don't see any reason in spending huge amounts of money on publicising the film for a theatrical release. We would
rather have a limited technical release so that we can then have a satellite release and it reaches across maximum audience. He was obviously not very happy
about it but didn't object to our move either."

Finally, where does that leave another Himesh starrer A New Love Isshtory which is directed by John Matthew Mathan and again produced by T-Series.
"A New Love Isshtory is 90% complete. But I have to see the film in totality and only then will I be able to take a call," signs off Bhushan Kumar.