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US Marshals Raid Alleged Piracy King

Aseem Chhabra in New York

The distributors of one of the hottest movies in North America is making sure that no piracy merchant takes away a slice of their profit.

On August 17, Eros Entertainment, the distributors of Subash Ghai's Taal, raided the New Jersey offices of a man suspected to be one of the biggest video and music pirates in the US. According to Eros's attorney, Megha Bhouraskar, the raid was conducted by US federal marshals to pre-empt the man from distributing pirated copies of Taal.

During the raid, 55 video recording machines, 32 related components and machinery for the duplication process and several hundred video cassettes and DVDs were seized.

Meanwhile, after smashing the opening box-office record of Hindi movies in North America, Taal continued to dance vigorously in the second week on 44 screens. In its first ten-day run, it grossed $ 1.1 million, according to estimated figures released by the Hollywood trade publication, Variety. For the week ending Thursday, August 19th, the film made $ 800,000.

Taal was released on Friday, August 13. In its opening weekend the film was ranked 20th among all the films showing in the US. In the second weekend (Friday, August 20 to Sunday, August 22) the film had dropped approximately 38 per cent in box office receipts.

However, with the weekend box office earnings of nearly $ 370,000, the Daily Variety (a sister publication of Variety) ranked the film at number 23 among all films running in the US. In the second weekend it had a strong per screen average of $ 8,322.

In England, it was the No 10 film in the entire country in its opening week, grossing approximately $ 270,000 on 27 screens, according to Variety.

In a press release and letters send to Indian music and video stores, Eros emphasized that it holds the exclusive copyrights to Taal. The distribution company added that it would "severely" prosecute any person or entity that might violate its copyrights to Taal.

Meanwhile, Regal Cinemas, a multiplex theater in North Bergen, New Jersey, which had shown the movie on all its 13 screens in the opening weekend, showed it on six screens in the second week and reports indicated that even during the second weekend, several shows were sold out.

All this excitement prompted Variety to announce that Taal had "one of the strongest debuts ever for a Hindi film in the US." In fact, all indications are that Taal had the strongest opening among Hindi films in the US.

Next week the Hindi film industry may get another major boost in the US. Eros is set to release their next potential blockbuster --Baadshah on 42 screens. Baadshah stars Bollywood's reigning king Shah Rukh Khan, and Twinkle Khanna. The film is directed by Abbas-Mastan who also made Khan's 1993 hit film Baazigar.

According to Eros spokesperson Behram Shahparast, the success of Taal should start a new trend in the US -- that of Hindi movies opening in American theaters that normally show first run Hollywood films.

So far Hindi films have shown mostly in theaters that were abandoned or fallen onto bad times. Among them is the Eagle in Jackson Heights, Queens, reopened after several months. The theater, which used to show pornographic movies, had been shut down after the city's health department received complaints of sexual activities there during the films.

Mainstream mutiplexes in suburban America have generally shunned non-Hollywood films. But all that is set to change Shahparast said.

"Records labels like Sony and Virgin Records realized the huge potential in India and entered the Indian market," he said. "Soon first run American theaters will realize a similar potential among the Indian audiences and start to show Hindi movies on a screen or two."

Already Village Seven Cinemas, a first run multiplex in New York's Long Island, shows Hindi films on its screens. And due to the draw of Indian audiences, Regal Cinemas has decided to show what is generally perceived as a non-commercial Indian film. On September 10, the multiplex will release Deepa Mehta's Earth, coinciding with the film's worldwide release.

Next: Man Held On $ 4m Bond For Allegedly Killing 2 Indians

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