Salman is furious with Sohail as MAMK flops big ti

The much-awaited and much-hyped movies "Blue" and "All The Best" that released Friday on Diwali eve have set the cash registers ringing while co-release "Main Aurr Mrs.Khanna" has proven to be a damp squib. The contents of all three films has, however, been panned in general by both audiences and critics.

"The content for all the three movies is not worth it. It's just because of the buzz that the three got a good initial with 'Blue' going strong at 80 percent followed by 'All The Best' and 'Main Aurr Mrs.Khanna' at 50 and 30 perecent respectively, " Amit Awasthi, manager (programming and operations) of Spice Cinemas at Noida, told.

"The housefulls though have been only for 'Blue'. The films will now see a major fall, as the advance booking is already over and it is only the current sale now, " he added.

Yogesh Raizada, corporate head, Wave Cinemas, echoed the same, saying: "All three movies have seen an initial close to 95 percent. While 'Blue' is on top because of the stunts and glamour, 'All The Best' brought audiences for its comedy quotient. 'Main Aurr...' is just a simple love story. The hype is now almost over and audiences are not going to watch more than one movie a week."

Directorial debut of Anthony D'Souza, "Blue" was extensively promoted as the country's first underwater film and the most expensive too with an approximate budget of around Rs.80 crore. The film has managed to bag around Rs.51 crore gross in its opening weekend.

Produced by Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision Ltd, it stars Askhay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Lara Dutta and Zayed Khan. Katrina Kaif along with Australian pop princess Kylie Minogue appear in a cameo in the film.

"All The Best", on the other hand, is a comedy directed by Rohit Shetty and stars Ajay Devgn, Bipasha Basu, Sanjay Dutt, Fardeen Khan, and Mugdha Godse. Made at a budget of around Rs.40 crore, the film is produced by Ajay and released with around 1250 prints worldwide. It has brought in close to Rs.10 crore net.

"Main Aurr Mrs.Khanna" is a co-production of Sohail Khan Productions and Ronnie Screwvala and distributed by UTV Motion Pictures. Made at a budget of around Rs.40 crore, it released with around 1, 200 prints worldwide but could make only Rs.4 crore net.

Creative producer Sohail Khan and UTV clearly seem at the loggerheads at the moment. While blaming the UTV for the wrong release datehe says, "Diwali was not the right time to release Main Aurr Mrs Khanna. People want to watch happy, funny films during Diwali. The middleclass doesn't have the buying capacity for tickets for three films."

"I wanted it released during the Valentine week. Mrs Khanna was a romantic film and it needed to be pitched that way. During Valentine's, we would have tied-up with vendors and sold romantic merchandise. I tried my best. But somewhere my judgment got fogged by their reasoning. They're after all experts at finances. We were just the creative people," he adds.

In turn, UTV has shocked everyone by allowing their Diwali release Main Aurr Mrs Khanna to be telecast on all DTH satellite television channels just three days after release (on Monday).

An infuriated Salman called over his brother Sohail (the film's producer) and director Prem Soni to his home and asked them to explain the reason for the debacle. Soon the meeting escalated into a full-scale argument between him and Sohail. So much so, that their dad Salim Khan had to intervene to sort it out.

Though Salman is very attached to his brothers and family, he feels he needs to do better films now and Sohail should have had more control over the script and editing.

Salman also expressed concern over the next three films being made under his home banner - brother Arbaaz's Dabaang, Atul and Alvira Agnihotri's next which was being directed by Prem Soni and the sequel of Partner. He wanted to be sure that the scripts would turn outright.

Sohail Khan says, "There was no fight between Salman and me. Films are a part of our lives... there will be some ups and downs but most of them have been ups, thank God."