Mirzya Leaked Online, Team  To Campaign  On The Evils Of Piracy

The subdued collections of  Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s purported epic love storyMiryza has left movie buffs shell-shocked. While boxoffice analysts are still trying to figure out why the film’s collections are so low, one major factor to have deterredMirzya’s boxoffice prospects is its leakage on the internet.

Earlier the boxoffice collections of films like Great Grand Masti , Udta Punjab andParched were available online illegally.

Rakeysh Mehra won’t take the blow to his film lying down. He is all set to start an anti-piracy campaign in and outside the film industry.

Says the film’s director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, “The complete film is available onyoutube. This is very disturbing and discouraging .We have to somehow find ways to convince people to see Mirzya  in theatres and not  pirated on YouTube ,  as it is a big-screen experience. On Sunday alone there were more than a million hits on YouTube. Now, if we translate those hits into footfalls into theatres.”

Mehra feels it is very important to educate the audience on why cinema specially of the kind that possesses the scale and vision of Mirzya must be seen on the  large screen. “My principal cast of Harshvardhan Kapoor, Saiyami Kher and Anuj Choudhuri along with me and other technicians will undertake a campaign to wean our audience away from viewing pirated versions of films. This is killing our film business. And if the movie business dies there will be nothing to see any longer.”

The makers of Miryza have already spent close to Rs 35 crores in the marketing and promotion. The campaign against piracy will cost another Rs 5 crores.