Universal star, Kamal Haasan's Viswaroopam DTH controversy has been doing buzz for quite some time. To support his point, Kamal Haasan said screening his upcoming flick Viswaroopam on DTH would not show any affect on theatre collections. He said only three per cent of people in Tamil Nadu have DTH connections out of which not everyone is going to subscribe to the movie. He further said, the subscription charges for Viswaroopam on DTH was Rs. 1000. So far any popular movies on DTH have been charged a maximum of Rs. 100 and Rs. 150 and Viswaroopam is going to break those records.

Viswaroopam, produced and directed by Kamal Haasan, aimed at Rs. 100 crore business. While the movie apparently got Rs. 50 crore already, Kamal Haasan wanted to pocket the remaining Rs. 50 crore by entering into deal with DTH operators. Accordingly, he apparently fixed a deal with operators, which irked distributors and theatre owners.

The observers said since the DTH operators would charge Rs. 1000 for Viswaroopam, people might not show interest to subscribe and watch it on TVs. However, people like aged and diseased, who can't go to theatres yet crave to watch new movies, might welcome this move. While Viswaroopam would be released in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi, the movie would be released on DTH only in Tamil version and in Tamil Nadu only.

In case, if the proposed plan turns into reality, then Viswaroopam would enter the records of Indian Cinema by becoming the first film to be released on television.

(AW Phani)