Category: Hindi

MUMBAI: Multiplex chain operator PVR Ltd. will invest Rs 2.5 billion to add 200 screens within five years.

The ramp up plan will include a foray into the eastern region. PVR currently has 101 screens across 25 locations, predominantly in north India.

“We plan to set up 200 new screens and invest Rs 2.5 billion over the next four to five years. We have already signed up space area across 35-40 locations. We are expanding our presence to the eastern region as well,” says PVR Cinemas chief executive officer Amitabh Vardhan.

PVR already runs multiplexes across 14 cities in India including Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Gaziabad, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Lucknow, Aurangabad, Indore, Baroda, Hyderabad, Ludhiana, Bangalore and Latur.

The new screens will be developed under three different categories of PVR, depending upon the socio economic standards of the location. The segments include PVR Premiere, PVR Cinemas, and PVR Talkies.

“While we are looking at opening around 13 PVR Premiere screens (for which the tickets are priced beyond Rs 200), we will be constructing approximately 9-10 PVR Talkies (tickets priced below Rs 100) in B and C towns. The rest will be PVR Cinemas for which the tickets are priced between Rs 100 to Rs 200,” explains Vardhan.

Multiplex operators including Adlabs (with 181 screens across 70 properties) are rapidly expanding their presence across the country.

MUMBAI: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that 2 September 2008 is the last day for filmmakers to submit their short subject and feature documentaries to the Academy for consideration for the 81st Academy Awards.

To be eligible, documentary features must have completed a seven-day commercial run in at least one theatre in both Los Angeles County and in the Borough of Manhattan in New York, between 1 September, 2007, and 31 August, 2008.

Members of the Academy’s documentary branch will determine the nominees for both the Documentary Short Subject and Documentary Feature categories.

MUMBAI: Adlabs Cinemas, part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, has launched its third cinema in Salem.

Adlabs Kailash Prakash will be located at Kalarampatti Main Road in Salem.

The new twin-screen cinema has a seating capacity of 1386. With the new property, Adlabs now has five screens in Salem.

Adlabs Cinemas COO Tushar Dhingra said, “There has been tremendous development in Salem in terms of infrastructure. We already operate cinemas in nine cities in Tamil Nadu, and now we are pleased to offer the people of this city another cinema with the world class facilities.”

With the recent addition, Adlabs Cinemas now has 181 screens spread over 70 properties across India.

MUMBAI: The 54th National Film Awards 2006 will be presented by President Pratibha Patil on 2 September. Veteran filmmaker Tapan Sinha will also be conferred with the Dada Saheb Phalke award by the president on that day, states PTI.

Pratibha Devisingh Patil will give away the awards in presence of Information & Broadcast minister P R Dasmunsi in New Delhi.

The 54th National Film Awards nominations had got delayed due to a legal issue that involved allegations of partiality in the awards. The Supreme Court later resolved the matter in favour of the government.

Following the Supreme Court ruling, the jury for the awards announced names of the winners in June this year. The date for the award function was awaiting consent from the President‘s office.

Sanjay Dutt starrer Lagey Raho Munnabhai won four national honours in categories including best popular film, best screenplay, best lyrics and best supporting actor.

Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee won the best actor award for the Bengali film “Podokkhep”, while Tamil actress Priyamani swept away the best actress award for the film “Paruthi Veeran”.

Madhur Bhandarkar’s “Traffic Signal” was declared winner of the best director award. Malayalam film “Pulijanmam” received the best feature film award.

MUMBAI: M Night Shyamalan‘s The Happening, co-produced by UTV Motion Pictures and 20th Century Fox, has collected approximately $162 million at the box office.

The film, produced at a budget of around $57 million, was released on 13 June with about 4500 prints in 2986 theatres across North America and with 5600 prints worldwide. In India, The Happening was released with 55 prints.

UTV and Fox had equally co-invested into the movie venture. While UTV has been responsible for distributing the film in India, 20th Century Fox and Spyglass Entertainment is handling the worldwide distribution of the sci-fi thriller.

During its opening weekend, The Happening had garnered $63.6 million (Rs 2.63 billion) at the box office. While the film had grossed $31.5 million in the US box office, it had reaped another estimated $32.1 million in other markets. This encapsulates approximately 88 markets including India.

The Happening focuses on the man‘s presence on earth and explores the environment as the victim of his villainy.

The film, starring Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo and Spencer Breslin, has been shot in east coast of America and Philadelphia.

Also, currently, UTV‘s first solo Hollywood production The Ex-terminators, starring Heather Graham, is under production.

MUMBAI: Online entertainment site Jaman.com, has announced a deal to distribute a large collection of premium titles from Lionsgate. This deal makes hundreds of movies from Lionsgate library available to Jaman‘s broad community of film fans.

A number of these titles will be available for free, ad-supported and instantly streamed in high-definition quality. With a simple click, viewers can watch these films immediately in their Web browser, with no need to download a client. Premium feature-length films from Lionsgate will also be available for download rental from $2.99 to $3.99 each.

Among the Lionsgate titles available at Jaman.com are Dogville, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Requiem for a Dream and The Bank Job.

Jaman founder and CEO Gaurav Dhillon says, “We are delighted to add these excellent Lionsgate films to our collection of quality movies. These titles, ranging from critically-acclaimed independent films to popular favorites, perfectly complement our mission to be the destination where film lovers discover, discuss and share the best films of the world.”

Lionsgate executive VP TV distribution Jon Ferro says, “Lionsgate is constantly identifying fresh opportunities to distribute and deliver our filmed entertainment library in an increasingly digital world and Jaman brings a unique value proposition to our efforts.

” They have created a high-quality platform that allows us to reach a diverse and highly enthusiastic group of film fans who continually look for new content. In cooperation with Jaman, we continue our innovation of digital distribution and viewer choice by giving audiences the ability to watch great Lionsgate films free with advertisements or renting movies add-free.”

MUMBAI: Film production and distribution company Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision (SACV) is investing Rs 800 million and will be releasing four films this fiscal.

The films include Shivam Nair’s suspense thriller Maharathi, Sanjay Gadhvi’s Kidnap, Rohit Shetty’s Golmaal Returns and an untitled film.

“We will pump in Rs 800 million this fiscal. Our target is to produce 4-5 films in the year,” says SACV chairman and director Dhilin Mehta.

Meanwhile, the company has got an enabling resolution to raise up to $100 million. The proposed utilisation of the proceeds is for expansion of existing activities of films production, distribution and investment in the wholly owned subsidiary company in Dubai.

“We are weighing options for raising the proposed amount and have obtained the shareholders’ nod,” says Mehta.

SACV had raised $33 million via FCCBs (foreign currency convertible bonds) last year.

The company has lined up 13 films which would release over the next two years. The ongoing projects are Blue, Luck, Run Bhola Run, One Way Ticket, Mudh Mudh Ke Na Dekh and Bond.

SACV plans to foray into the regional film market with Tamil and Telugu films.

Directed by Anthony D’Souza, Blue stars Sanjay Dutt, Akshaye Kumar, Lara Dutta, Katrina Kaif and Zayed Khan. The cast of Soham Shah’s Luck, which marks the debut of Kamal Hasan’s daughter Sruti Hassan, include Sanjay Dutt, Imran Khan, Danny Denzongpa, Ravi Kissen and Mithun Chakraborty.

Neeraj Vora‘s two films are Run Bhola Run starring Govinda, Tusshar Kapoor, Tanushree Dutta and Amisha Patel and One Way Ticket starring Anil Kapoor and Akshaye Khanna.

Shree Ashtavinayak has also closed two separate co-production deals with Sri Jaganaath Entertainment and Sanjay Dutt Productions. While it will be co-producing Mudh Mudh Ke Na Dekh with the former, it will co-produce Bond with the latter.

The company has also signed up directors like Rummi Jaffery, Vivek Sharma, Rohit Shetty and Imtiaz Ali for its untitled projects.

MUMBAI : Compact Disc India (CDI) has posted a net profit of Rs 83.5 million for the quarter ended 30 June, 2008 up 109 per cent from Rs 39.8 million in the year ago period.

During the period, total income has achieved a growth of 114 per cent to stand at Rs 433.6 million from Rs 202.2 million in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

A few animation films outsourced projects on which CDI is currently working on are If Tomorrow Never Comes ($8.50 million), Hustle Bustle ($12.45 million) and 3000 B.C. (cost of the contract is $19.80 million) .

The company is presently working on two animation feature films – Soccer and Eternal Love. Soccer is a 90-minute 3D animated film based on soccer. Both the films are produced by Mediaone Ventures.

MUMBAI: Reliance’s Big Pictures is set to release Rock On!!, directed by Abhishek Kapoor, on 29 August.

The star cast of the film includes director-turned-actor Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, Purab Kohli, Luke Kenny, Prachi Desai, Koel Puri, Shabana Goswami and Nicholette Bird.

While the film has been co-produced by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar, Miriam Joseph is the executive producer of Rock On.

Also, the music of the film has been composed by the Shankar Ehsaan Loy trio, while the lyrics have been penned by Javed Akhtar.

Rock On!! revolves around the story of four friends who aim to put together the greatest band that their country has ever witnessed.

Years later, fate once again conspire to bring them together again and set them on a journey back to where they left off…a soul-searching into their past.

MUMBAI: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) said on Monday that it is “not for sale”, countering a media report that the owners were looking to sell the movie company for $5.2 billion.

“Contrary to recent media reports, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios is not for sale,” the studio responded in a statement. “There is no ‘asking price‘ for the company. MGM‘s existing financing arrangements are sufficient to meet its needs.”

The studios also mentioned that it had retained Goldman Sachs to ‘explore enhancements’ to its long-term capital structure.

The film studio, which is co-owned by private equity firms TPG, Providence Equity Partners, Sony Corp. of America and Comcast, lost $400 million in its most recent fiscal year, ended March 31, according to BusinessWeek.

MGM said its shareholders are pleased with the company‘s current momentum and are committed to the future growth of the studio.