Due to Shraddha’s ‘Haseena Parkar’, DDLJ show canceled at Mumbai’s Maratha Mandir for the first time in 22 years

Mumbai’s iconic Maratha Mandir — which has been running the movie Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) for the past two decades. For the first time in 22 years, the film’s matinee show was cancelled for the trailer screening of Shraddha Kapoor-starrer “Haseena Parkar” on Tuesday.

Haseena Parkar‘s trailer will be screened in Maratha Mandir at noon, for which the matinee show (and the only show) of “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” at the theatre will be cancelled for a day. The matinee show of DDLJ at Maratha Mandir usually has full occupancy and the Aditya Chopra-directed film has been running in the theatre successfully since its release in 1995.

The makers of Haseena Parkar want to screen the trailer in Maratha Mandir because of its proximity to Dongri, where Haseena Parkar and her gangster brother Dawood Ibrahim grew up.

Manoj Desai, executive director of Maratha Mandir Cinema, said the makers of the film thought of launching the trailer there as Parkar lived in Dongri, which is very close to Maratha Mandir.

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Desai, however, insists no injustice has been done to DDLJ. “The film-makers approached me with the idea and said they would pay equivalent to a houseful show. I ran the idea past Yash Raj Films (producers of DDLJ), who agreed and that is how this was planned.” The tickets for the matinee show cost between Rs 15-20 and the theatre is mostly full, especially on weekends.

The film is a biopic on gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s sister, who is also known as ‘Queen of Mumbai’. The film stars Shraddha Kapoor in the titular role of Haseena while her real brother Siddhanth Kapoor plays her onscreen brother Dawood Ibrahim.

In February 2015, the owners of Maratha Mandir declared that DDLJ will be removed from the screens after its historic run of (then) 1009 weeks. However, after a public outcry by fans of the iconic love story, Yash Raj Films (the film’s producers) and Maratha Mandir’s owners mutually agreed to continue the film’s matinee show for the sake of its fans. “It has been mutually decided to continue the screening in the same 11:30 am morning show – without breaking the uninterrupted run of the movie,” YRF had said in a statement, reports IANS. Therefore, this will be the first time in two decades that DDLJ‘s screening at Maratha Mandir will be disrupted.

Directed by Apoorva Lakhia and is produced by Nahid Khan. The movie is slated to release on 18th August 2017.