'Tanu Weds Manu' sole World Cup survivor

The cricket World Cup has affected various businesses in the country for over a month, but there is one man who is secretly rejoicing and hoping that it goes on indefinitely.
He is none other than director Aanand L Rai whose film, Tanu Weds Manu (TWM), braved yorkers, managed not to get stumped and scored despite the fierce World Cup attack.
The film in its fifth week ran in over 500 theatres from the initial 850 prints, and has so far grossed over 60 crores and netting Rs 40 crores, making it the second highest Bollywood grosser in 2011 after Yamla Pagla Deewana.
Besides TWM and a few B-grade movies that released during the World Cup, Bollywood hasn’t seen a single big release in the past month and a half. While fear of losing viewership to the Cup kept most big films out of the theatres, TWM enjoyed an unchallenged run in the theatres. But Aanand believes it was not just cricket that helped the movie. He says, “Yes, it helped that there was no big film release, but you have to remember that people have enjoyed the movie and recommended it to friends. After the initial marketing push, the word of mouth took over.”
In hindsight, one is bound to ask whether the release of the film, that now seems strategic, was deliberate. “Like every filmmaker I wanted the film to run a little longer, but no it was not exactly planned. Yet, at some level it was both a strategy and a risk. It was a gutsy decision. Films with big stars won’t take the risk, but we did and it has paid us handsomely,” says Aanand. He believes that if the film were bad, the audience would have rejected it no matter when it released.
Amidst various national reports about many single screen theatres that have been shut for a few weeks, Tanu Weds Manu has been a ray of hope for those that didn't. On the fourth Sunday of its release, it grossed a total of Rs 1 crore, a rare feat for any film. Obviously happy about it, Aanand says, “My ten year old daughter passes Cinemax daily to go to school. When Strangers (his first film) was released, she was upset that the poster was taken out in a week while other films’ posters were on longer. I had promised her then that one day my film will last longer than others. Today, I see her beaming face every time she sees a TWM poster or when her teachers tell her that her dad has made a good film — that is my biggest happiness.”
Herein perhaps lies a lesson for Bollywood — that with a good film you can indeed take on cricket and that sometimes it does pay to go against the crowd.