Great Grand Masti online leak caused us huge losses: Makers

Mumbai: The makers of adult-comedy "GreatGrand Masti" today said that the online leakage of the film three weeks before its release has "killed" the movie and they have suffered "huge" losses.

The release date of the third instalment in the "Masti" series was changed, from July 22 to July 15, due to the online leak. 

Director Indra Kumar and film's cast including Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani and Urvashi Rautela today expressed their displeasure over the dampening effect of leak on its box-office collection.

"It's a big loss for us. This has happened for the first time when a film is leaked 17 days before its official release. It has killed our film. It's a tough time for us. We are sad and upset," Kumar said in a press conference held here.

Vivek claimed, "We are facing huge losses. It's unprecedented as the film was leaked three weeks before the official release. It must be almost Rs 100 crore loss." 

According to the makers, the movie has earned over Rs two crore at the box office on its opening day. They have already filed a complaint with Cyber crime cell and that the investigations are on in full swing.

"The government and police officials helped us a lot by taking action against those who were selling pirated DVD. By this we could curb physical piracy, but digital piracy was not in our hands. We hope we get compensated once the perpetrators are booked," said Hitesh Jain, legal aid of film's producer Balaji Motion Pictures. 

Riteish revealed that it was through one of their fans that they learnt the film was leaked online. "We were at IIFA awards when we saw a fan posting an image from the film and it had 'For Censor' written on it. We initially thought it's a movie still but later learnt that the film was released online," Riteish said.

"We immediately informed the producers and we all jumped in to prevent it (online leak/piracy). We started talking to people in government including the I &B ministry, police officials and cyber crime cell," he added.

Urvashi said the leak was akin to murdering the movie. "When 'Udta Punjab' got leaked online, all of us felt bad. I never expected that my film will also face a similar situation. It's really disheartening. It's nothing less than a murder."

Despite the film being available online, the team did not stop promoting the film. "We thought by talking about our problem, we would in a way tell people that our film is already available before its official release. This would mean more loss. So we thought about talking about the issue after the film is officially out," Aftab said.