Bollywood not to rush for action

MUMBAI: Bollywood producers heaved a sigh of relief on Monday after the Supreme Court granted Sanjay Dutt interim bail. However, they have decided to keep the champagne on ice till the final verdict.

Nearly Rs 500 crore is riding on Dutt, if one takes into account the upcoming films and brand endorsements, and his sentencing last month had cast a big question mark over its future.

With the interim bail, pending projects such the Rs 50-crore home production with producer Sanjay Gupta, Alibaug; Sanjay Gadhvi’s Rs 35-crore Kidnap; and the Rs 35-crore Mehbooba, directed by Neeraj Vohra and co-starring Ajay Devgan may get priority.

Dutt will have to work overtime to complete them before a copy of the final judgement is delivered to him. There are also films like Mr Fraud, for which producers are unwilling to begin shooting until the final judgement is out, and it was clear how long the actor would remain out of jail.

“Even though he has got bail, much depends on what happens in the final judgement. After all, this is just an interim bail,” film trade analyst Taran Adarsh said. “Whether or not his projects will be completed depends on how long he is out on bail. He has some major projects like Abbas-Mustan’s next, and he would require some time before he can complete them,” he added.

Meanwhile, Dhamaal, which hits the big screen in the first week of September, is expected to have a huge opening with Sanjay Dutt being in the spotlight for some time now. A trade analyst said, “The publicity will help the film immensely, as fans will now be wanting to watch Sanjay Dutt’s possibly last performance in a while to come.”

The fate of Abbas-Mastan’s Rs 40-crore production under the Ashtavinayaka banner, Mr Fraud, and the Soham Shah-directed Rs 30-crore Race, is uncertain. The other flick stuck at the scripting stage is Dutt’s home production Bihaad, directed by Bunty Lutharia and based on the life of his late father, Sunil Dutt; and Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Munnabhai Chale AmriKa. However, nobody has pressed the panic button as yet, in the hope that Dutt will manage to wriggle out of the situation.