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Business News/ Industry / Media/  Bachchan cameo in ‘Great Gatsby’ gets lead role in India promotions
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Bachchan cameo in ‘Great Gatsby’ gets lead role in India promotions

Warner Bros tapping Indian star to help local audiences relate to film based on an American literary classic

Warner Bros has created posters and cut-outs especially for the Indian market that feature Amitabh Bachchan as Wolfsheim. (Warner Bros has created posters and cut-outs especially for the Indian market that feature Amitabh Bachchan as Wolfsheim.)Premium
Warner Bros has created posters and cut-outs especially for the Indian market that feature Amitabh Bachchan as Wolfsheim.
(Warner Bros has created posters and cut-outs especially for the Indian market that feature Amitabh Bachchan as Wolfsheim.)

Mumbai: Two words suffice to describe the promotional strategy of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby in India: Amitabh Bachchan.

Bachchan’s cameo in Luhrmann’s 3D-powered adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel of the same name is proving to be the leading act in the movie’s marketing strategy in India. The Great Gatsby opens here on 17 May, a week after its release in the US and two days after inaugurating the Cannes Film Festival. The high-powered cast includes Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Carey Mulligan as his great love Daisy Buchanan, Tobey Maguire as Gatsby’s neighbour Nick Carraway and Joel Edgerton as Daisy’s husband, Tom. Bachchan plays Meyer Wolfsheim, a Jewish gangster and Gatsby associate—a walk-on part, but enough to encourage the movie’s distributor, Hollywood studio Warner Bros, to create a connection between local audiences and a period drama based on a 1925 American literary classic. Warner Bros has created posters and cut-outs especially for the Indian market that feature Bachchan as Wolfsheim. The movie’s selling points in the West, such as its flamboyant filmmaker and its use of 3D technology, are relegated to the bottom of Bachchan’s bearded visage. Since the 70-year-old actor features in international trailers, the studio didn’t cut a separate trailer for India.

The Great Gatsby is opening exclusively in 3D on close to 120 screens, which is at least twice as much as the normal allotment for Baz Luhrmann’s previous spectacles, including Australia and Moulin Rouge!, said an employee with a multiplex chain. “Usually, the release of such a film would be niche, and it would go to between 50 and 60 screens especially since Baz Luhrmann’s films haven’t done too well here in the past," added this person, who didn’t want to be identified. “But the moment you had Bachchan, the profile of the film got raised, even though he has a small role."

The average screen count for a Hollywood drama is between 80 and 100 screens, while franchises and superhero films get released on 500-1,000 screens.

Warner Bros representatives declined to comment.

The studio has been judiciously teasing Bachchan’s presence in the movie, perhaps wary of the sneering that accompanies news of Indian actors being cast in blink-and-miss parts in Hollywood films. Apart from the posters, the studio has arranged interviews in newspapers and on television. (In his interview with The Hindustan Times, Bachchan described his role as a “very small cameo", adding that he didn’t charge any money to appear in the reported $125 million production.) Warner Bros publicised Bachchan’s presence at the premiere in New York City on 1 May, and will be banking on reports from the Cannes Film Festival. Fortunately for Bachchan, who is appearing in a foreign film for the first time in his storied career, American critics have noticed his presence in an extravaganza that has been routinely described as “over-the-top", “energetic", “fevered" and “hyperactive".

Trade weekly Variety remarked that The Great Gatsby “reaches its orgiastic peak 30 minutes in, with the first full reveal of Gatsby himself (Leonardo DiCaprio), accompanied by an explosion of fireworks and the eruption of Gershwin on the soundtrack. Where, really, can one go from there?"

However, the publication added that, “By far the liveliest work in the film comes from two actors with only a few minutes of screen time between them: the lithe, long-limbed newcomer Elizabeth Debicki as gabby golf pro Jordan Baker, and, in a single scene that marks his belated Hollywood debut, Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan as the flamboyant Jewish ‘gambler,’ Meyer Wolfsheim."

The Boston Globe mentioned the “omniscient gangster Meyer Wolfsheim, here played (and very well) by the Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan", while trade weekly The Hollywood Reporter cited “notorious gambling associate Meyer Wolfshiem (curiously impersonated by Indian cinema star Amitabh Bachchan)". The LA Times noted that Luhrmann and his production team “pile on the spectacle and the glitter until we are gasping for air", but added, “Except for Indian star Amitabh Bachchan’s unexpected cameo as Jewish gambler Meyer Wolfsheim, the only character who survives this onslaught of insincerity is, paradoxically, the man who can be seen as the story’s master of deception, Jay Gatsby." The weekly newspaper Village Voice observed that “Luhrmann has also made some dashing and witty casting choices—for example, giving the role of shifty gangster Meyer Wolfsheim to Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan, whose facial hair actually suggests a wolf."

Bachchan has tremendously helped increase interest in The Great Gatsby in India through blog posts on his official website, https://srbachchan.tumblr.com, and regular tweets about the production. In one of the tweets at his Twitter handle @SrBachchan, which has a little over five million followers, he acknowledged the attention: “Much being written and said in glowing terms of the reactions at “Gatsby" premiere towards a certain 70-yr old ... a humbling moment."

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Published: 13 May 2013, 11:25 PM IST
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