September 21, 2010 (Sampurn Wire): There is a change in plan for the release date of ‘Anjaana Anjaani’. Though plans for 24th September were finalised months back in advance, the latest developments around the court verdict to be passed around 60 year-old Ayodhya title suit led to some rethinking amongst the makers. Resultantly, the film has now been pushed a week ahead to 1st October.
Says an industry observer, “The film had heated up quite well for this Friday release. The music is hit while promotional events have been going on full swing as well. No producer would actually want to move his film ahead when so much publicity has already taken place. A week’s definitely delay would lead to more investment in the entire promotion and publicity machinery.”
“However, what is also of utmost importance is to pre-empt the sentiments across the country on 24th September. Really, one can never be too sure about how tense the situation could be then. It is not just about the state of UP, it is about the whole country. Security is already pretty pressed up for the entire weekend. It wasn’t a bad idea after all for ‘Anjaana Anjaani’ to hold on for a while and let 24th September pass by”, he continues.
The trigger point for this entire series of events was a promotional event of ‘Anjaana Anjaani’ where Ranbir Kapoor went on record to state that it was improper to release the film on 24th September since such a big national level decision was being announced on the same day. He felt that that it was more appropriate to release ‘Anjaana Anjaani’ a week later. Though producer Sajid Nadiadwala and director Siddharth Anand were supposedly not quite prepared for such comments, they were prompted to give it all a rational thinking.
Trade isn’t overtly worried about this movement in release date though and is looking at it positively. “Even if this Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra starrer decides to come on 1st October, it won’t be a bad deal after all. Since ‘Aakrosh’ had decided to move ahead by a week as well, the only other major film releasing alongside is Rajnikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan starrer ‘Robot’. However, its audience base is primarily down South.”
Meanwhile, the lead actors were continuing to promote the film in a business as usual manner.
— Joginder Tuteja / Sampurn Wire
