Humayun Saeed and Syra Shahroz arrived at the venue after the film had begun and left merely forty minutes later.
CinemaScope
The much awaited film premiered in Karachi but in a strange turn of events was postponed for release immediately after. Instep reports...
What was touted to be Pakistan’s first superhero film has turned out to be every producer’s nightmare. After months and months of finalizing the script, shooting the film, working on the post-production and finally promoting it endlessly, Humayun Saeed, Sheheryar Munawar and Syra Shahroz’s Project Ghazi finally premiered at Nueplex on Thursday night but things didn’t go as planned.
As expected, the event began late. While the time given on the invite was 7 pm, there was no sign of anyone from the cast and crew till 8.30 pm. We couldn’t even spot PG’s PR team. There was very little star power on the red carpet as well.
However, we did spot an eager Ahad Raza Mir, who makes it a point to attend every film’s premiere. “I’m a Sheheryar Munawar fan so I had to watch the film,” he shared, while Ali Gul Pir also made his way through an army of reporters on the red carpet who were more interested in questioning the comedian about the Panamagate crisis in the country.
By 9 pm, the venue had become unbearably crowded. It was almost impossible to walk through the crowd without being elbowed in the face. The attendees had also not received their tickets yet. Around this time, the producer Syed Mohammad Ali Raza, entered the venue and there was still no news of when the cast would be appearing.
The event was so ill-organized that most people did not know where to get their tickets from. After obtaining the ticket from an inconspicuous corner, one learnt that the film was scheduled to start at 9.30 pm. Instep spoke to the staff of Nueplex and learnt that the film would be played at the scheduled time and wouldn’t be postponed for anyone.
We asked Ali Raza if he could point out people who were responsible for this two and a half hour long delay, to which he responded, “We’re currently waiting for the stars to arrive. Sheheryar (Munawar) was supposed to fly in from London to attend and we’re waiting for him.”
Apparently Syra Shahroz had arrived at the venue but was waiting for her co-stars to make an appearance with them.
The film industry also came out to support the film. We saw ace director Jami as well as Nadeem Baig. Syed Noor also made an appearance to the premiere alongside his Chain Aye Na stars. Adeel Hussain could be seen braving his way through the insane crowd and honestly, he didn’t look too pleased to be there.
Around 9.30, Humayun Saeed and Syra Shahroz finally walked the red carpet but by this time, the press had become so impatient that the climate of the premiere had suddenly become very aggressive. Shahroz herself looked frazzled when being photographed at the red carpet and the two stars were immediately whisked away so as to not miss more of the film.
However, from the looks of it, it seems as though the stars didn’t miss much. Saeed and Shahroz barely stayed for forty minutes of the film before deciding to leave the theatre. Many others were seen exiting the venue midway, citing technical/audio issues that made the film unbearable to watch.
The film’s release has now been postponed and this was decided after the premiere. A status was shared on the film’s official Facebook page that confirmed this news: “It is with a heavy heart that we are making the announcement thatProject Ghazi’srelease date has been postponed. We understand that this was a highly anticipated movie, but films of this magnitude require extensive technical work and hence to do justice to this film genre, we have decided to delay the release from July 14, 2017,” they wrote.
One would hate to speculate but it sounds a little like the producers (and the cast) did not watch the final cut of the film prior to this premiere. Did they not know what was going to happen on screen? From what we’ve heard from sources, there was a lot of uncertainty in the air after the censor screening, and everyone was considering cancelling the premiere. But the producers decided to carry on and hoped for the best.
The smarter decision would have been to simply postpone the premiere. That would have been a smaller mess to handle compared to the unpleasantness that has now become synonymous with Project Ghazi. Now, one will wait for an indefinite period for the film to see the light of day but sadly, from what we’ve seen already, we won’t be holding our breath.