Hindi
World Cupp 2011 readies for release on 18 December
MUMBAI: World Cupp 2011, a movie based on match-fixing in cricket and starring two former cricketers Saba Karim and Nikhil Chopra, is being released on 18 December with 500 prints.
Producer-director Ravi Kapoor who also plays the central role told indiantelevision.com that he had taken actual situations and given the real names of 15 bookies and members of the underworld in Mumbai.
As a result, he had received a threatening call from gangster Ravi Pujari who has accused him of working at the behest of Chhota Rajan. The charge is that Kapoor has shown Pujari’s wife Padma as part of the betting.
Similarly, he had used the name Shobhan for the main bookie, knowing fully well that there is a match-fixer of that name operating in Mumbai. Karim and Chopra are playing themselves in the film.
Kapoor said his film will trace the genesis of match-fixing as a cornered underworld finds a new source of revenue after their weekly income from dance bars stopped when these were banned.
He said that he had not spared parties like the Shiv Sena which had made a lot of hue and cry about cheerleaders, but said nothing about match-fixing.
Asked about the title, he said he had been advised by a numerologist to spell Cup with a double ‘p’ for luck.
Asked what inspired him to make the film, he said that when India lost to Bangladesh in the 2007 World Cup, he was convinced that the standard of the ‘Men in Blue‘ could not have fallen so low after a defeat against Australia. He, therefore, suspected match-fixing to be the cause of this.
He said the research on the subject had taken him two years. He met a lot of bookies and also police personnel and sat with bookies when they were accepting betting.
He said he had noticed times when a team which was 100 for no loss was suddenly all out for 120. He said if the excuse was that the pitch was turning, why was it that it suddenly became placid when the other side came in to play.
Asked why he wanted to start his career with such a risky theme, he said “I wanted to start my career with a realistic subject.”
Hindi
Dhurandhar the revenge storms past Rs 1,000 crore in a week, rewrites box office records
Aditya Dhar’s spy thriller sets fastest run to Rs 1,000 crore with record-breaking weekday hold
MUMBAI: The box office has a new juggernaut—and it is moving at breakneck speed. Dhurandhar the revenge has smashed past the Rs 1,000 crore mark worldwide in just a week, clocking a staggering Rs 1,088 crore and resetting the rules of the blockbuster game.
Backed by Jio Studios and B62 Studios, and directed by Aditya Dhar, the spy action sequel opened to the biggest weekend ever for an Indian film globally—and then refused to slow down. Unlike typical tentpole releases that taper off after Sunday, this one powered through the weekdays with rare muscle, posting Rs 64 crore on Monday, Rs 58 crore on Tuesday, Rs 49 crore on Wednesday and Rs 53 crore on Thursday.
The numbers stack up to a formidable first-week haul. India collections stand at Rs 690 crore nett and Rs 814 crore gross, while overseas markets have chipped in Rs 274 crore, taking the worldwide total to Rs 1,088 crore in just eight days.
The film’s opening weekend alone delivered Rs 466 crore, laying the foundation for what is now being billed as the fastest climb to the Rs 1,000 crore club in Indian cinema. Every single day of its first week has set fresh benchmarks, from the highest opening weekend to the strongest weekday hold—metrics that typically separate hits from phenomena.
A sequel to the earlier hit Dhurandhar, the film has not just built on its predecessor’s momentum but obliterated previous records, emerging as the biggest global blockbuster run by an Indian film to date.
At this pace, the film is not merely riding a wave—it is creating one.
