11th October 2003
Virginia

B Madhu - producer of Chiranjeevi's latest blockbuster Tagore - has met with the press today and spoke for a few minutes. He said that the movie has attained great success and has collected a share of 17 crores in 2 weeks (9+7).

Youth should not indulge in piracy
Madhu said that the mafia kingpins who are indulging in piracy at root level are using youth to copy the CD's by giving them Rs. 10/- per CD as copying charges. In the process, the youth would get caught by police as Kingpins emerge scot-free. The punishment for indulging in piracy is a jail term for 7 years. Hence B Madhu has requested the youth to know the consequences of indulging in piracy. He also announced that Chiranjeevi would be giving a prize money of 1 lakh each for the people who report about pirated VCDs in any shop.

Demand was there for 300 prints
B Madhu said that he wanted to release Tagore with 225 prints as the maximum capacity of Telugu film industry is 225 prints. But the buyers asked for 300 prints in the last minute. But he had to cut it down to 275 prints. 275 prints is what it take for a big Hindi film to release all over India. And its amazing to see so many prints being released for a regional film. Inspite of releasing with 275 prints, there was so much of rush and frenzy at the cinema halls, which forced the intervention of MROs (Mandal Revenue Officers) and cops. There were even incidents of tickets being sold at police station. In cities like Vijayawada, we need to recommend for the theater owner for a couple of tickets for our friends and relatives.

About Rajahmundry tragedy
When asked about the seizure of Rambha theater in Rajahmundry, B Madhu said that it was a sad incident and all the cast and crew members could not come out of the house during that day due to the feeling of sadness. What happened at the theater was a failure on behalf of the theater management. And we sent strong instructions/precautions to all the theaters to take necessary actions to prevent the recurring of similar incidents.

Unexpected and unprecedented shares
B Madhu said that in a town like Ananthapur 8 theaters screened Tagore film for the day one. In a theater at Proddutur, the share for Dussara day was 1.75 lakhs. He said that from 3rd week onwards, Tagore would be playing at single (main) theaters. Madhu said that Tagore would break 99% of all records created so far. In Nizam, Tagore collected 5.05 crores in 2 weeks and its expected to cross the Nizam's highest share 7.4 crores by 50 days.

Abroad market to touch 1 crore in 2-3 years
In abroad areas like Gulf, 25 lakhs were collected in just 3 days. The earlier highest collections in Gulf had been 2-3 lakhs in total run. The market for abroad is growing a lot now a days. B Madhu professed that the business of Telugu cinema in Abroad for the next 2 years would touch one crore.

8.5 lakhs of audio cassettes sold so far
Madhu said that 8.5 lakhs of audiocassettes have been sold so far. The producer is planning to have a hexaplatinum disc (12 lakhs) function as soon as it completes 12 lakhs. B Madhu is also said that he is planning to release the audiocassette of dialogues of Tagore soon.

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