Simmba Impact: Hectic Rescheduling Of Bollywood Releases

January  has turned  out to be  a bonanza for  Ranveer Singh and  his director Rohit Shetty, as  their joint  effort Simmba  marches on.But it’s proven  a nightmare  for  the  releases  slotted for  the forthcoming weeks.

  Most hard  hit are the Hindi releases  slotted  for  January  11. While  Ronnie Screwvala’s  real-life  Indo-Pak war epic  Uri directed  by Aditya Dhar  and the Manmohan  Singh bio-picThe Accidental  Prime  Minister are going ahead  on Januray 11, as per plan, Pahlaj Nihalanihas decided  to  postpone  his Govinda starrer  Rangeela Raja by a week.

Explains  Nihalani, “Simmba  is  much stronger at  the  boxoffice than  expected. It would be difficult to  get  screens  on January 11. Besides it’s Pongal in the South  on January 14 and there are  as many as 6  big  Tamil and Telugu releases.  The South market  is wiped  out for Hindi releases  that week.I’d rather bring my film on January 18.”

But now  Nihalani faces an unforeseen competition on January  18 from the  educational satire  Cheat India. The film featuring Emraan Hashmi as a examination-papers racketeer  was  scheduled  for January 25 along with  the Bal Thackeray   bio-pic and the Jhansi Ki Rani bio-pic  Manikarnika.

But  T series  and other co-producers  of Cheat  India  have been “requested” by  the Shiv Sena  to  let  Thackeray  be  a solo release on January 25.

Says an informed source,  “Cheat India has been preponed by a week  and will now  come on January 18 along with  Pahlaj Nihalani’s Rangeela Raja which was postponed from January 11 to  January 18.”

But Thackeray would still have to face competition  from Manikarnika, right?

“Wrong,” says  the source. “The  film’s  VFX are not ready as yet.It is likely to be postponed from Januuary 25 for at least  a week.”