Swine flu scare - Bollywood sneezes!

The movie shoots have been getting cancelled and there is a chance that the upcoming new releases from Bollywood could witness fewer footfalls in theatres because of the growing scare of the Swine Flu pandemic. As many as 935 people across India were tested positive for the H1N1 virus till Monday night and the number is on the rise.

Given this panicky situation, the Bollywood folks are playing safe. Firstly, Karan Johar cancelled the shoot of his production Qurbaan in Pune, the city worst hit by Swine Flu in India. Then Salman Khan, who was scheduled to shoot for important sequences of his upcoming period drama Veer at Pune’s Agricultural College, too has cancelled the shoot. Now, the scenes will be canned inside a studio in Mumbai despite it costing much more for producer Vijay Galani.

However, such preventive measures to check the spread of the flu and to ensure the safety of the crew isn’t likely to affect Bollywood as much as the fear that the increasing pandemic could claim casualties in the new Bollywood releases.

Up for release this Friday is Vishal Bharadwaj’s Kaminey and Rumi Jaffrey’s Life Partner. There is a fear in the industry that the seat bums in theatres could be substantially reduced if the highly infectious flu keeps spreading and creating panic among general public. Less and less people would opt to go to theatres in such a case.

Besides, there is a buzz that the government is thinking of issuing an order for the closing down of multiplexes and malls in Pune to contain the spread of flu. If true, this could affect the performance of the new releases.

However, trade experts believe that ‘Kaminey’ will anyhow get a good opening at the box-office because of all the hype surrounding the movie, not to forget the scintillating chemistry between Shahid Kapur and Priyanka Chopra.

Still, we might see the movie buffs sitting in theatres with face-masks on!