As if the unpredictability of the Box Office wasn't bad enough, Bollywood filmmakers now have to contend with the unpredictability of the weather world wide. Truant weather has thrown production schedules for big ticket films like 'Blue' and 'Kites' into disarray and increased production costs. Photo Credit: Sawf News / File Sawf News Exclusive
By Preity P
September 18, 2008 (Sawf News) - As if the unpredictability of the Box Office wasn't bad enough, Bollywood filmmakers now have to contend with the unpredictability of the weather world wide. Truant weather has thrown production schedules for big ticket films like 'Blue' and 'Kites' into disarray and increased production costs.
The run of bad weather began with Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision's Blue which was being filmed at a small island near Phuket. The stars of the film, Sanjay Dutt and Akshay Kumar, had to spend days in their hotel suites thanks to heavy rains and thunderstorms. They were put up at the very expensive Banyan Tree Hotel in suites which had a per day charge of Thai Baht 60,000 (Rs. 80,000).
"We had to suffer heavy losses because of days wasted. More than the money dates of a busy star like Akshay Kumar were wasted due to the bad weather," a production official told us.
Vivek Oberoi. Photo Credit: Sawf NewsTIPS Films had to face weather problems for two of their on-going productions - the yet untitled action thriller starring Vivek Oberoi in South Africa and Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani back home in India in Ooty.
The Vivek Oberoi film produced by Kumar Taurani was being shot on the outskirts of Johannesburg and constant heavy rains and storms lead to disruption of the film shoot for 6 days in a row. Vivek, we learnt, spent most of his time in his hotel suite on a Play Station.
Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, which is produced by Kumar's elder brother, Ramesh Taurani (head honcho of TIPS) and directed by Rajkumar Santoshi, had its own tryst with angry weather gods. The film starring Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif was being shot on outdoor location in the outskirts of Ooty when heavy rains and absence of sunlight for days forced the makers to change the script and shoot most of these portions indoors, as they were losing out on dates of busy stars Ranbir and Katrina.
Hrithik Roshan. Photo Credit: Sawf News / FileNearly half way across the world, the unit for Rakesh Roshan's Kites had to bear losses estimated at Rs 3-4 crore because of the disruption caused by hurricane Ike.
Kites directed by Anurag Basu headlines Hrithik Roshan along with Brazilian actress Barbara Mori and Kangana Ranaut.
At one point Roshan contemplated coming back to India and returning to location a few weeks later after the hurricane season.
The unit has since cut short their shooting schedule in Mexico. It moved to US four days back and is presently in Las Vegas.
The film unit of Soham Shah's Luck, which returned back to India last week after a 50 day long schedule in Cape Town and Namibia, also encountered rough weather, not of the figurative kind.
A unit source told us, "We had to brave a lot of sand storms while shooting in the Namibian deserts. There was a song being shot between the lead pair Imran Khan and Shruti K. Haasan in the Namibian deserts along with a few action sequences. But we used to waste half a day everyday there till the storms settled down to proceed shooting."
So has the heat generated from Bollywood items songs over the years caught up with the producers by tipping the scales of Global Warming?
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