30 Million In The Opening Week

Bowing to pressure by the American Hindus Against Defamation and its allies, Warner Bros agreed on Monday to delete from the soundtrack the Bhagvad Gita used in an orgy scene in Stanley Kubrick's controversial film, Eyes Wide Shut. The movie, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, explores the darker side of a marriage, and ends up supporting monogamy. 56 million at the box-office. It is showing on about 400 screens, and in a week, bisexual it would lose about 300. The movie will briefly play in second-run movie houses. A spokesperson for Warner said the agreement reached with the Hindu groups does not affect the prints which are being used in cinemas in the countries where the film is in release. Over 1,500 prints used in America would not be touched, Warner said, adding that where ever the film is in release, the shloka will remain. For instance, the print unveiling at the prestigious Venice Film Festival's opening night today will have the shloka. But the television and video versions of the film in all countries will not have the shloka, the spokesperson added. The movie will be aired on American television after about six months. It will be available on video a few weeks thereafter. 4.5 million. A Warner spokesperson said the prints there will not be altered. In England, Germany, Italy and a dozen countries, however, the print will be shown without the shloka. The movie will be shown on more than 350 screens in England shortly. American-born Kubrick made England his home for more than two decades. Hindu activist. "Someone in England must have thought of the huge protests there when Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses was released. Surely, we were not going to do anything as foolish as that, but what the heck, we are glad that some sense has dawned on the producers at last." Nancy Kirkpatrick, senior vice-president for publicity at Warner Bros, said Jan Harlan, the London-based executive producer of Eyes Wide Shut, was shocked to learn about the hurt experienced by Hindu groups. Harlan has repeatedly said there was any intention to slight or hurt anybody, she said. Kirkpatrick said, after discussing the issue with Harlan and others associated with the movie which was shot completely in England. Kubrick had the final cut say in the movie, but the director died soon after the film was completed and edited for release. A few days before the movie's release, Warner digitally masked part of the orgy scene in America to avoid a rating problem. 30 million in the opening week, began slipping at the box-office with a 50 per cent decline each week, the protests went unheeded. Hindu groups had argued that if Warner could soften the impact of the orgy scenes, they could delete the shloka from the movie. Ajay Shah, convener of the AHAD.