Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2001 5:53 pm
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Why Shekhar Kapur has the Midas Touch
He had a winner in Bombay Dreams, The Guru promises to follow suit
Arthur J Pais
"Never mind the reviews," Shekhar Kapur said Saturday, discussing The Guru that had just opened in United Kingdom. "From the feedback I have been getting, people are liking it."
http://www.rediff.com/entertai/2002/aug/28guru.htm
But he had no expectations for the movie, for which he served as an executive producer, to lead the box-office chart in United Kingdom. Playing on 368 screens, the comedy not only earned 1.5 million pounds ($2.2 million) in three days, it also had the highest per screen average.
Kapur, who was in New York to promote his big budget Oscar-hopeful adventure drama, The Four Feathers, told Rediff.com that his expectation for The Guru was strengthened by the huge success of the West End musical Bombay Dreams was also savaged by the critics. "And it has become a huge, huge hit," said the director who is credited with providing the story idea for the musical produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
The Guru tells the story of a young Indian (Jimi Mistry) who moves to New York in the hope of becoming an actor. But even his efforts to be a porn actor do not bring him fame. So he turns into a sex guru.
Most reviews for the film directed by Daisy von Scherler Mayer and featuring Heather Graham and Marisa Tomei were negative.
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'There's no bite or edge to this movie; it's goofy, soft-centred romcom slush, with some very half-hearted Bollywood pastiche,' wrote Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. Alexander Walker in The Evening Standard was even more condemnatory. 'The surprise is to find this shabby, shoddy, grubby little offering coming from the British company Working Title,' he complained, referring to the company that has made such interesting films as About A Boy, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones's Diary and Four Weddings And A Funeral.
Working Title also produced Shekhar Kapur's 1998 breakout film, Elizabeth, nominated for multiple Oscars, including Best Picture.
But the BBC, giving the film three stars out of five, called The Guru 'an engaging cross-cultural comedy,' and added that it 'stirs together Bollywood and Hollywood, satire and romance, to create an appealing masala dish of a movie.'
In United Kingdom, The Guru joined two other films with Indian connection to be among the top 15 on the box-office charts. In fact, both are Hindi productions --- Devdas, about to end its first run engagements, has grossed a strong 1.6 million pounds ($2.4 million). But it is about a million pounds less than Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham gross. The other film, Mujhse Dosti Karoge, which is also about to end its run, has grossed an impressive 620,000 pounds ($930,000) after three weeks.
The Guru is the second cross-cultural movie in recent months to have scored big with the mainstream. Gurinder Chadha's Bend It Like Beckham ended its run with a lofty $18 million and continued to do excellent business abroad. In Australia, despite playing on just about 95 screens, it has grossed about $5 million in less than two months. The film, which is yet to open in many countries, will have its North American premiere during the Toronto International Film Festival next month.
However, moviegoers elsewhere in North America have to wait till early January to see it.
The Guru is scheduled to open in America in October through Focus, a division of Universal Pictures. Among the more successful films released by Focus is Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding which has grossed about $14 million in North America.
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