Theatre shortage for Neha and Vivek's Luv Story

By Subhash K Jha

After the disastrous Kismet Love Paisa Dilli, aka KLPD, Vivek Oberoi has been counting on the rom-com Jayanta Bhai Ki Luv Story to bring him back into the reckoning. And initial reports of the film are largely encouraging with Vivek's performance as a goofy gangster coming in for special praise.

However the film is facing an unforeseen crisis. A shortage of movie theatres!!

The two releases last Friday Neeraj Pandey's Special 26 and Remo d'Souza's ABCD have both become much stronger boxoffice bets than anticipated, thereby precipitating an unexpected bottleneck at the turnstiles.

Film exhibitors all over the country who anticipated a shortfall in the footfall for both the films this week have decided to continue with last week's releases rather than replace them with the new releases this week.

Arvind Sharma, a prominent distributor-exhibitor from Bihar says, `It is truly unexpected. We never expected both the films this week to do well. I can't remember when was the last time this happened. Now that Special 26 and ABCD both are doing well we can't pull them out. `


While exhibitors have accommodated Mukesh Bhatt's son Vishesh's Murder 3 into the schedules for the double whammy last week they are loath to make adjustments for this week's other release Jayanta Bhai Ki Luv Story.

Says Sharma, `The Murder franchise has some face value. But Vivek Oberoi's films have not been doing well. Convincing exhibitors to replace last week's successful film with a Vivek Oberoi starrer would be difficult. `

Kumar Taurani of Tips is remarkably forthright on the exhibition crisis faced by his film.

Says Taurani, `Yes, we have a problem in getting shows.. But I feel that could be an advantage as Jayanta Bhai Ki Luv Story is a mid-sized rom-com and whoever is interested will go for those selected shows. I am hopeful we'll get housefuls in the shows that we've got. `