After fighting tooth and nail to ensure that Sridevi’s comeback vehicle English Vinglish does not budge from its release date September 21, the film’s producers have finally bowed out of the woman-centric race. Leaving the coast clear for Kareena’s heroine on Sept 21, English Vinglish has now moved to October 5.
The decision was taken at a meeting earlier this week attended by the producers, director Gauri Shinde and Boney Kapoor.
Various reasons are being put forward for Sri’s delayed arrival in the theatres. None of them, claim the producers Eros Entertainment and Balki, has anything to do with another heroine-oriented jostling for attention on the same Friday.
Balki says the film is just not ready. “There are three separate versions of the film in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi to be completed. Though we could’ve rushed into release on September 21, we saw no point in it. We’re yet to shoot with Ajith who plays Mr. Bachchan’s role in Tamil and Telugu. I am doing that this week. Then we return to post-production work.”
A source from Eros has a completely different explanation for the postponement. “Eros saw too many releases jostling for space in September. Plus we now have our own Chakravyuh directed by Prakash Jha coming in September (on the 12th). Eros with Balki’s consent took a decision to postpone rather than have two releases from Eros during the same month.”
However, the third and most interesting explanation for the postponed release of English Vinglish comes from a source very close to Heroine. “It wasn’t really about two corporate houses Eros and UTV vying to get their product in to the same Friday September 21. It was about two screen queens Sridevi and Kareena Kapoor coming with their films on the same day. Kareena and Sridevi met and talked it out. Both felt Heroine couldn’t afford any more delay. So both the actresses decided to let Kareena come first into theatres.”
The last word on the postponement of English Vinglish comes from the irrepressible Balki.
“The Hero always gives the Heroine the right of way. And Sridevi is the hero of English Vinglish. She’s decided to let Heroine get there first.”
