May 20, 2010 (Sampurn Wire): As things stand today, ‘Kites’ should take one of the biggest opening of the year so far. There is no reason why this Hrithik Roshan starrer shouldn’t find itself in the same bracket as ‘Housefull’ and ‘My Name Is Khan’, the two films that have hovered around the 30 crore mark as far as the first weekend collections in India are concerned. While it is a given that Hrithik will break the record of ‘Dhoom 2′ as far as opening is concerned, it has to be seen that what kind of distance does the film travels after the first weekend euphoria is over.

An arrival of a Hrithik Roshan film is an event in itself, just as is in case of Aamir Khan starrers. Add to that the exclusivity tag that he comes with and one can pretty much foresee a huge film here from the house of Roshans. Hrithik’s last full fledged appearance was in ‘Jodhaa Akbar’ which came two years back though he did have an extended guest appearance in ‘Luck By Chance’ a year back. Now is the time for his fans to see him in all his glory and the kind of promotional built up which this Anurag Basu directed film has seen over last one year, it can be safely assumed that ‘Kites’ will see at least 80% opening.

Still, there is slight element of doubt that one has around how ‘Kites’ will stay on from Monday onwards. While the opening weekend belongs to the actor and the promotion, the weekdays belong to the film. Due to constant rumours around fallout between Roshans and Anurag Basu, one wonders if the final product would have been impacted by any means.

There have been films in the past that have seen a total blackout after a great weekend due to trouble between two makers. A glaring example is ‘Trimurti’ which took the best opening ever of those times but crashed once audience found out that collaboration of Subhash Ghai and Mukul S Anand with coming together of big stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff hadn’t delivered expected results.

This is why one gets a little apprehensive about how ‘Kites’ would continue to fly from Monday onwards. For Bollywood’s sake though, one prays that ‘Kites’ doesn’t turn out to be 21st century ‘Trimurti’.

– Rudhir Burman / Sampurn Wire