- Atlanta - Boston - Chicago - DC Area - Houston - Jersey Area - Los Angeles - New York - SF Bay Area
- Astrology - Broadband - Cricket New! - Immigration - Money - Movies - New To US New! - Radio - Women - India News - US News
- Rediff Chat - Rediff Bol - Rediff Mail - Home Pages
Aseem Chhabra
Last year's humungous success of Kaho Naa Pyar Hai may have convinced Jeetendra that the time was right for his son Tushar to make his debut in Bollywood. To play it safe, Tushar dropped his family name Kapoor from his screen persona. And, for good luck, added an extra 's' to his first name.
The film Tusshar took up as his first venture was director Satish Kaushik's romantic musical Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai (Kaushik added another 'c' to the word Kucch -- also for good luck). Another sure bet Kareena Kapoor, youngest scion of the "real Kapoor" clan of Bollywood, was signed on to play the female lead.
MKKH also had a historical significance for Bollywood trivia lovers. Thirty-four years ago, Jeetendra's first hit Farz starred a young actress called Babita. Kareena is Babita's daughter.
With all this going for MKKH, one would have expected another KNPH.
Well, the box-office numbers are out and it seems that MKKH is only a modest success. The film grossed $75,000 in North America in its opening week. This does not make MKKH a chart-topping blockbuster, but technically it is not a bad opening for a film with unknown actors.
"The film has done really well for its new star cast," said Kishor Dadlaney, a spokesperson for Video Sound, MKKH's Edison, New Jersey-based distribution company. Dadlaney added that his company did not have huge expectations of MKKH, which was reflected by the fact that the film was released on a mere 21 screens.
"Once every seven or eight years there comes a movie with totally unknown stars and it becomes a huge hit," Dadlaney said, citing the examples of Love Story, Bobby and KNPH. But those are rare occurrences, he added.
MKKH opened on May 25. In keeping with the trend that most Bollywood film distributors have adopted to cancel out the influence of video pirates, Video Sound released the official DVD of MKKH on June 2. The goal, Dadlaney said, is to let a film have its normal theatrical run and then to flood the market with legal DVDs and videos.
Two years ago Video Sound made a fortune with director Sanjay Leela Bansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, which grossed about $450,000 in its first weekend, shot into Variety's top 20 weekly list and ended up with $ 1.4 million.
Video Sound's next project is director Anil Sharma's Gadar -- Ek Prem Katha, which stars Sunny Deol and Amisha Patel (in her first acting venture since last year's KNPH) . Gadar is set to be released on June 15, the same day Sony Entertainment will launch producer Aamir Khan's Lagaan. Both Gadar and Lagaan are period films set in British India.
Meanwhile, the surprise hit of the season, director Suneel Dharshan's Amitabh Bachchan vehicle Ek Rishtaa, continues to drive smoothly in box-office land. In the United Kingdom, Ek Rishtaa has earned approximately $334,000 on 15 screens in its first two weeks of release. In the US the film was released by Tips Music and has grossed approximately $300,000.
Back to top
Tell us what you think of this report
