ITV

Tag: Chetan Bhagat

  • ABCD, Special 26 continue to do well

    ABCD, Special 26 continue to do well

    MUMBAI: Murder 3 is a Bhatt Brothers formula that fails this time. Lacking in face value and music to back it, the film has had a weak opening and a poor opening weekend. The film managed to collect Rs 112.5 million in its opening weekend.
     

    Viviek Oberoi starrer Jayantabhai Ki Love Story, a rather under-publicised and badly released film, is a write off from day one; it managed to collect just about Rs 17 million for the opening weekend.

    Special 26 has been helped to a great extent by good word of mouth as the film, which opened slow on Friday, 8 February, went on to pick up over the next two days, peaking on Sunday and then going on to maintain steady collections through the week to end its opening seven days with Rs 418 million. The film also benefits the most due to the poor new releases — Murder 3 and Jayantabhai Ki Love Story — to hold well in its second weekend to collect Rs 116 million taking its 10 day total to Rs 534 million.

    ABCD: Any Body Can Dance has appealed to youth and multiplex patrons. Its best performance is in western India while the east is not up to mark. The film collected Rs 278 million for its first week.

    Vishwaroop has not been able to impress the Hindi moviegoer. The film collected Rs 10.5 million in its second week taking its tally to Rs 128 million.

    Race2 collected another Rs 38 million for its third week taking its total to Rs 964.3 million.

    The coming Friday will see two new releases. While Kai Po Che is the second Chetan Bhagat novel to be adapted for a film (after 3 Idiots) and has immediate identification in Western India, Zila Ghaziabad has a highly UP flavour. So much so that the Delhi-UP distributors are very enthusiastic about the film and plan to release it at all the 20 multiplexes in Ghaziabad and all five in Noida besides booking maximum single screens in the circuit.

  • UTV’s Kai Po Che to premiere at Berlin Film Fest

    UTV’s Kai Po Che to premiere at Berlin Film Fest

    MUMBAI: UTV Motion Pictures‘ upcoming film Kai Po Che is scheduled to have its world premiere at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival scheduled to go under way next month.

    The film, based on Chetan Bhagat‘s novel The 3 Mistakes of My Life, will be screened at the film festival on 13 February.

    The film, which stars newcomers Sushant Singh Rajput, Raj Kumar Yadav and Amit Sadh in lead roles, portrays the journey of three friends as they discover cricket, religion and business in their respective fields.

    Said Disney UTV Managing Director – Studios, Siddharth Roy Kapur, “We are incredibly proud that Kai Po Che has been selected for a world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. What is even more creditable is that it is the only Indian film in the official panorama selection announced by the festival this year.

    For a film dependent entirely on its strong story line rather than its lineup of stars, this is a huge achievement and for that I would like to commend Abhishek Kapoor and his entire cast and crew for bringing all their talent and passion to bear, to make Kai Po Che a film for the ages.”

    Set against the backdrop of religious politics, the story of Kai Po Che underlines the three mistakes made by Govind. The film as well as the book is set in Gujarat and hence the title Kai Po Che.

    Thirty-one fictional features from 23 countries will provide insights into contemporary world cinema production at the 10-day-long Berlin ale festival.

    The film will hit screens in India on 22 February.

  • UTV Spotboy buys rights of Chetan Bhagat book, starts shoot

    UTV Spotboy buys rights of Chetan Bhagat book, starts shoot

    MUMBAI: After the screen adaptation of his book Three Idiots, another of Chetan Bhagat‘s bestsellers, The 3 Mistakes of My Life, is to be made into a film by UTV Spotboy titled Kai Po Che!. It will be directed by Abhishek Kapoor who had earlier directed Rock On!

    UTV Motion Pictures has officially bought the rights to the bestselling book that was first published in May 2008 and had an initial print-run of 420,000 copies with many reprints after that.

    Said UTV Motion Pictures CEO Siddharth Roy Kapur, “If ever there was a script that captures an era in our history and defines an entire generation on celluloid, this is it. Abhishek, Pubali, Supratik and Chetan have done a magnificent job of adapting Chetan‘s book into a screenplay that has the potential to emerge into an iconic film like Rang De Basanti or Dil Chahta Hai, which captured the essence and aspirations of the youth.

    Kai Po Che! has already created headlines as the Gujarat government has agreed to give their full support to the production. Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, has himself given a go-ahead to UTV to shoot freely in the state.

    “We are thrilled to be collaborating with Chetan, Abhishek, Javed Akhtar, Amit Trivedi and a fresh new cast on what promises to be a landmark film,” added Kapur.

    The film will have screenplay by Kapoor along with Pubali Chaudhuri, Supratik Sen and Chetan Bhagat.

  • Chetan Bhagat turns assistant director

    Chetan Bhagat turns assistant director

    MUMBAI: Going by the adulation he has been receiving after his book adaptations turning box-office hits, Chetan Bhagat, in his endeavour to get into filmmaking one day, has decided to assist director Abhishek Kapoor for the film adaptation of his book, 3 Mistakes of My Life.

    Bhagat’s decision comes after Kapoor offered the author to join the crew when the film takes off in March. Averred Bhagat, “Abhishek is a friend of mine. Hence, being a part of his project would be easy for me.”

    Excited about UTV’s interest in the project, Bhagat has reportedly said “I do have a good relationship with them, they having earlier bought the rights of my book Revolution 2020.”

    Incidentally, Bhagat’s screen adaptation 3 Idiots went on to become a stupendous hit.

  • ‘Three Idiots’ to get massive Chinese release this month

    ‘Three Idiots’ to get massive Chinese release this month

    PANAJI: A total of 900 prints of Raj Kumar Hirani‘s ‘3 Idiots‘ are being released in China – making the largest release of any Indian film that country.

    Stating this, producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra also announced that the film is being made in Hollywood by a filmmaker there, and in Italian.

    He said the Chinese release comes on the heels of the huge success of this film in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

    He attributed the success of the film to the fact that human emotions were the same everywhere.

    He categorically said that the film was only inspired by Chetan Bhagat‘s book and not based on it as it was vastly different. 

  • UTV acquires filming rights of Chetan Bhagat’s Revolution 2020

    UTV acquires filming rights of Chetan Bhagat’s Revolution 2020

    MUMBAI: UTV Motion Pictures has acquired the filming rights of Chetan Bhagat‘s latest fiction novel Revolution 2020.

    UTV said that the novel will be turned into an epic drama with strong roles for the lead cast. The book has great roles for its key protagonists, as it narrates the story of three central characters – Gopal, Raghav and Aarti whose destinies are intertwined.

    UTV Motion Pictures CEO Siddharth Roy Kapur said, “We have been in discussions with Chetan for a while to do something together. When he shared his latest book with us even before it was published, we read it cover to cover in a single sitting.

    “It‘s simply un-putdownable. He has crafted such a dramatic plot with such sharply defined characters, that you‘re constantly wondering how things will play out. The issues he deals with in the book are those today‘s youth will instantly relate to and identify with. We‘re very excited to work with him on making a great film from what we all believe is a great book.”

    Chetan Bhagat added, “Yes, UTV finally managed to seduce me. A great offer, immense excitement about the story and a wonderful team with a track record makes me feel they can do justice to Revolution 2020, a story very close to me and the readers‘ hearts.”

    Every book authored by Bhagat so far has been optioned for movie rights. Rajkumar Hirani‘s 3 Idiots was based on Bhagat‘s first novel, Five Point Someone; while Hallo was made on One Night @ Call Centre.

    His later works like 2 States and 3 Mistakes of my Life are also slated to be made into movies by other production houses.

  • Huawei Devices signs Chetan Bhagat as brand associate

    Huawei Devices signs Chetan Bhagat as brand associate

    MUMBAI: Huawei Devices has signed author Chetan Bhagat as brand associate for its smartphones and tablets category.

    The Chinese telecommunications company is all set to introduce its flagship range in India – an Android 3.2 powered tablet – Mediapad and Vision cloudphone – a smartphone based on cloud services.

    Under his association with Huawei, Bhagat an engineer from IIT, will support the launch of Huawei’s products ranging from smartphones to tablets and will also be a part of all digital, above the line (ATL) and below the line (BTL) activities. His upcoming book Revolution 2020 will also be used to engage customers.

    Bhagat known for his youth oriented novels Five Point Someone (2004), One Night @ the Call Center (2005), The 3 Mistakes of life (2008) and 2 states-the story of my marriage (2009) has also inspired Hindi films like 3 Idiots and Hello.

    Huawei Devices marketing and solutions director Anand Narang said, “Huawei’s latest range of Smartphones and tablets cater to the youth and we are positive that our association with Chetan Bhagat will help us engage youth in meaningful ways. Chetan is an innovator who has created an entirely new market in Indian publishing. And this aspect of his personality is in sync with Huawei which is an innovator with its focus on leading-edge technology and design.”

    Bhagat added, “As an engineer from IIT, I have always been very interested in technology and its applications. Telecom has been one of the fastest growing sectors in India and Huawei has played a big part in this growth. I have also discovered that it is rated as one of the most innovative companies in the world by many prestigious publications like the Economist. I am really looking forward to be associated with their latest range of Smartphones and Tablets.”

  • Star News launches hunt for TV news anchor

    Star News launches hunt for TV news anchor

    MUMBAI: Hindi news channel Star News has launched the first of its kind reality show on news television called Star Anchor Hunt.

    The channel will search for news talent in the country and the two winners – one male and one female – will get to be news anchors of Star News.

    Contestants will have to register on the website StarAnchorHunt.com and selected candidates will be invited for audition rounds which will take place across 10 cities: Indore, Nagpur, Allahabad, Lucknow, Mumbai, Patna, Delhi, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Jaipur.

    The contestants will be judged by Star News editor national affairs Deepak Chaurasia, actress Tisca Chopra and Chetan Bhagat – author of Five Point Someone (2004), One Night @ the Call Center (2005), The 3 Mistakes of life (2008) and 2 States-the story of my marriage (2009).