Walt Disney Studios gets Home Video rights 'Taare Zameen Par'

Walt Disney Studios has bought the Home Video rights of Bollywood star Aamir Khan's directorial debut 'Taare Zameen Par' for release in the US. The deal is estimated to be worth Rs.50 million but Aamir Khan's production office refused to corroborate it. This is for the first time that any Hollywood distribution company has bought the Home Video rights of an Indian movie to be released in the mainstream market overseas. Disney will release the DVD with English sub-titles. The movie was jointly produced by Aamir Khan Productions and PVR Pictures.
'The film has had a successful theatrical run in the US. Being a poignant film based on an universally relevant theme, it should do well in the overseas home video circuits as well,' said a PVR official in Mumbai. Starring Darsheel Safary as the protagonist, the movie is about an eight-year-old dyslexia boy and how a teacher, played by Aamir, brings him out of this predicament. Besides Aamir and Darsheel, it also stars Tisca Chopra and Vipin Sharma. In India, 'Taare Zameen Par' DVD will be brought out by T-Series.

Vivek replaces the bad Vadivelu in Padikathavan

After Vadivelu walked out of the movie Padikathavan’s set for an misunderstand with the director Suraj, he was looking for a comedian to replace Vadivelu. Suraj has replaced him with Vivek. It was when Vadivelu said more word that wasn’t in the script and when the director asked him to stick to the script Vadivelu took it as an insult.

Sania inbetween Shahid-Vidya Balan Friendship

Well Kismat Konnection has been released and ironically, it seems that the two co stars of the film, Shahid Kapur and Vidya Balan are reportedly drifting away from each other. And the person supposedly responsible for this state of affairs is none other than the second woman in Shahid's life.
Everybody knows how close Vidya and Shahid were. They both even share the same designer. Vidya has been there for Shahid during the period when Kareena broke up with him. In fact, they became such close friends that most people have been speculating that they were in love. They may not have been in love, but were pretty close. That is until a certain Sania Mirza made her way into Shahid's life. Apparently, Sania is not happy with the Vidya Shahid relationship and to please her, Shahid has stopped ecommunicating with Vidya. Shahid, Vidya, Aziz Mirza's daughter and a couple of others would all hang out together but in recent times, the actor has been acting very aloof. On the Sania front, things seem to be going very well. Shahid recently organised a special screening of Kismat Konnection for Sania. It was attended by the tennis star, Shahid and his family. Quite cosy.

Hounsou as villan

Djimon Hounsou will star in and produce a film based on the Conan the Barbarian" character Thulsa Doom for Dynamite Entertainment. According to Variety, the film will showcase the origins of the flawed hero turned immortal sorcerer and show how his road to hell was paved with good intentions. The character which will be featured in his own comic book series next year, first appeared in the Robert E. Howard 30's pulp story "Delcardes' Cat". He was previously portrayed onscreen by James Earl Jones in 1982's "Conan the Barbarian".

Tom Cruise in sequel

Tom Cruise has been asked to reprise his role as cocky fighter-pilot Maverick in a "Top Gun" sequel. It's been twenty-two years since the first film in which Cruise played a Navy pilot trainee and now a sequel script has apparently been penned. "The idea is Maverick is at the Top Gun school as an instructor - and this time it is he who has to deal with a cocky new female pilot" a source tells the paper.

Shilpa And Shamita Shetty in Kollywood

Shilpa Shetty and her sister Shamitha Shetty will act in Tamil movie. Their movie Fareb in Hindi is being dubbed in Tamil. In Tamil the movie will be titled Kama Sathileelavathy which is an emotional thriller. The cast includes Shilpa Shety, Shamita Shetty, and Manoj Bajpai. Shilpa Shetty is playing the wife of Aditya who is played by Bajpai. She is a doctor named Neha.

"Knight" stands tall in the weekend Box office collections

Sunday's estimates are now looking larger than originally stated with the $39.8 million likely to be revised up towards $43 million. Official Sunday figures will be released later this morning **.

"The Dark Knight" has broken the record books with the film taking in an estimated three-day opening weekend haul of $155.3 million - easilly beating the previous 'best opening weekend of all time' title held by "Spider-Man 3" with $151.1 million.

A $67.9 million haul on Friday combined with a $48 million Saturday total to yield the figure which gives the extraordinarily well-reviewed film an astonishing $35,579 per screen average across 4,366 theaters. Warners is estimating a Sunday figure of around $39.5 million, but no-one is certain how this will play out until accurate three-day figures come in tomorrow morning.

Internationally the film is also doing gangbuster business with a $40 million haul despite only opening in 20 countries which doesn't including major markets like the UK or Japan. Even if the drop-off is steep, unlikely considering the reviews, the film will easily pass the $300 million and likely push into the $400 million range by the time its finished its run - either way it'll be the biggest earner of the year and well ahead of nearest rivals Indiana Jones and Iron Man.

"Mamma Mia!" proved highly effective counter-programming with the musical pulling in $27.6 million - the biggest opening ever for a musical and inching just ahead of last year's $27.5 million opening for "Hairspray". Despite notably mixed reviews, the film hauled in a strong $9,275 per screen average domestically. Its also racked up a very impressive $72.6 million international haul in just eleven days.

Both the success of 'Mia' and 'Knight' domestically this weekend led to $250 million in ticket sales overall - the biggest three-day weekend in terms of total grosses ever - easily throttling the previous record of $218.4 million on July 7th-9th 2006 when "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest" and "Superman Returns" dominated the frame.

Not everything was sunshine though. Fox's highly panned "Space Chimps" opened in seventh place with a mere $7.3 million. Whilst last week's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" held well with only a 43.3% drop, "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" plummeted a disastrous 70.9% (from $34.5m to $10.0m) - even more than Eddie Murphy's highly panned "Meet Dave" which fell 68.9%. Both rank high among the biggest second weekend drops of all time - not a surprise for 'Dave' but certainly a shock for 'Hellboy' considering reviews have generally been good.

Both "Wall-E" and "Hancock" are holding well with both to pass the $200 million mark by next weekend. Further down the list various May and June releases are slowing right down with "Indiana Jones" and "Iron Man" neck-and-neck to finish up with about $320 million each, "Kung Fu Panda" to score about $220 million, "Sex and the City" to sizzle at $160 million, "Get Smart" and "Wanted" to come in at just over $140 million while "Incredible Hulk" is just under that mark.

On the limited release front the thriller "Transsiberian" took in a strong $17,600 per screen average in two New York theaters.