Madras High Court stays Vishwaroopam release till Jan 28

R. Ravikumar Updated - March 12, 2018 at 05:24 PM.

Vishwa2

The Madras High Court’s stay on Kamal Haasan’s Vishwaroopam till January 28 has put the theatre owners in a fix. “We do not know what to do now, as we have allotted screens and sold tickets for the first three to four days,” said the general manager of a multiplex in the city. “We have no other option but to wait till some clarity emerges on this issue,” he added.

A senior official of Sathyam Theatres, another multiplex in the city where the movie was scheduled to release, said the theatre will refund the money to those who have booked tickets, “hopefully from tomorrow”.

Kamal Haasan’s multi-lingual

Vishwaroopam , after crossing several hurdles in the last few weeks, was scheduled to be released on January 25. The Tamil Nadu Government last night asked district administrations across the State to invoke relevant legal provisions to ban the screening of the movie for two weeks to maintain law and order in the State as some Muslim organisations alleged that the movie portrays their religion in poor light.

Following this, Raajkamal Films (producer of the film) moved the Madras High Court challenging the stay.

Today the court said it has stayed the release of the film in Tamil Nadu till January 28, and the judge would take a call after watching the film himself.

Expressing his disappointment over these developments, Haasan, who is in the US for the launch of the film there, said, “While I am touched by the voices in support for me and my film, I am appalled at how my film is construed to be against my Muslim brothers. I am not only hurt by these accusations of denigrating a community but my sensibilities are truly insulted. Any neutral and patriotic Muslim will surely feel pride on seeing my film.”

> ravikumar.ramanujam@thehindu.co.in

Published on January 24, 2013 14:50