Releasing simultaneously in Hindi and English May 21 in over
60 countries, it has been produced by Hrithik's filmmaker-father
Rakesh Roshan and will be distributed and marketed by Reliance
BIG Pictures.
The English version, shorter by half-an-hour than the two-hour
long Hindi one, has been presented and reworked by Hollywood
director Brett Ratner.
Shot in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Santa Fe, the much anticipated
project also stars Kangana Ranaut.
Noteworthy is that Kangana has been visibly absent from promotions
of the movie. Asked if she had been sidelined, Basu said: "She
has not been sidelined from the promotions. We don't want to
include Kangana very much in the promotions and give a wrong
perception of the film."
"If we include more of Kangana in the promotion, it will
give the perception of a love triangle between Kangana, Hrithik
and Barbara, which it is not. It's a love story between Barbara
and Hrithik. She has a special appearance in the film and that's
what her role is in the promotions too," he explained.
Earlier rumoured to release in 2009 and then in January 2010,
marking Hrithik's 36th birthday and his completion of 10 years
in the film industry, "Kites" has seen a constant
delay in coming to the box office.
"The perception of delay happened because people thought
the film was ready and was shown in Cannes last year which is
not the case. Actually what we had shown there was just the
working tape," said Basu.
"We were ready only by winter (last year), but because
it's a huge film and we have both the Hindi and English versions
releasing together, to meet all the logistics, we decided the
final date as only May 21," he added.
Basu's future projects include a "romantic movie with
Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra and a biopic on Kishore Kumar".