For want of a blockbuster

Komal Nahta

Naaz building, which houses most film distributors in Bombay, wears a despondent look.

It has been further accentuated with the debacle of Kahin Pyaar Na Ho Jaaye. Its failure to pick up is sure to result in heavy losses for its distributors and exhibitors who booked it at fancy minimum guarantees or fixed hires.

An eerie fear has overtaken the communities of exhibitors and distributors, not just in Bombay but in other circuits, too. For distributors, the question to deliberate on is whose films do they buy?

For K Murali Mohan Rao, director of Kahin Pyaar Na Ho Jaaye, was a very reliable name before this disaster.

Shyam and Narendra Bajaj's (producers of KPNHJ) earlier film was the hit Bandhan. Like KPNHJ, it, too, was a Venus presentation.

Now, exhibitors are unsure what to screen. With films not being able to sustain themselves at the BO and Ramzan round the corner, their position is an unenviable one.

Mohabbatein is the only film doing well right now. Though its performance lacks lustre in B and C class centres.