Zubeidaa catches the Chopras' fancy

Komal Nahta

Shyam Benegal's Karisma Kapoor-Manoj Bajpai starrer, Zubeidaa, will finally hit the screens on January 19, 2001.

The film's release date has been changed twice before this.

Producer Farouq Ruttonsey had planned to release the film on the Id weekend (December 29), but he ran into problems finding distributors for most parts of India.

Realising he needed some more time to close deals for most of the territories, he decided to postpone the film's opening to January 5, 2001. Even that did not help.

Meanwhile, he showed the film to several distributors and even managed to sell a couple of territories. Shringar Films -- one of India's biggest film distributors -- bought the rights for the Bombay territory two weeks ago.

But large chunks still remained unsold.

This week, however, Ruttonsey's luck changed. Yash Chopra, after seeing a preview of Zubeidaa, made an offer the producer couldn't resist. Chopra, who also owns a film distribution outfit besides his production house, offered to release the film on all-India basis.

However, there was a catch.

Chopra's offer was for all-India release, while the film had already been sold for Bombay, the country's highest return-yielding territory. As Ruttonsey pondered over the dilemma, the Shroffs of Shringar Films came to his rescue.

As a mark of respect to Yash Chopra, they relinquished the Bombay rights of the film. And asked Ruttonsey to go ahead and close the deal with Yashraj Films!

The film is now slated to release on January 19, 2001.

Incidentally, this is the second non-mainstream Hindi film that Yashraj Films will be distributing. The first? M F Husain's Gajagamini that will hit the screens this Friday.