'Nishabd' gets lukewarm response

New Delhi, March 2 (IANS) The initial response to Ram Gopal Varma's "Nishabd", in which Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan romances a girl 40 years younger, has not been as overwhelming as expected, but trade pundits say it will pick up over the weekend.

"It is quite an impressive film. However, the occupancy rate today was 60 percent. But there are huge advance bookings for Saturday and Holi," Saurabh Varma, vice president Programming & Distribution of Inox Leisure Ltd, told IANS on phone from Mumbai.

Saurabh added that the reviews would help the film's fate at the box office.

The film, based on "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov, has newcomer Jiah Khan pitted opposite Amitabh.

"Amitabh's performance has been hugely appreciated," said Saurabh.

In Delhi, bookings for the evening shows have been encouraging compared to the morning ones.

"So far, the response is not so encouraging. The collection was only 50 percent in the first half of the day," said a source at PVR Cinemas.

Varma's film got into legal problems with Kanungo Media, producer of a Bangla film with the same name. It filed a case against Varma's alleging that the Bollywood director had announced his film just a week after the screening of his Bangla film at a film festival. He requested that a stay order be put on the film's release.

"If we stay the release of the film it would be a loss to the film producer as he has spent crores of rupees on advertisement," said Chief Justice M.K. Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Khanna in their judgement Thursday.

Earlier, on Feb 27, Justice A.K. Sikri dismissed Kanungo Media's suit on the ground that it had approached the court very late.

"You should have approached the court immediately," he observed.

Justice Sikri added that law was in Kanungo Media's favour but since he had approached the court late, it was not possible to pass any injunction at this stage.

Critics have appreciated the film saying that Varma has handled a taboo theme with maturity and sensitivity. But they feel the subject has its limitations and would appeal to a very a small section of moviegoers because this kind of relationship is still not acceptable in Indian society.

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