News

Censor board opens doors at 10 PM to clear Welcome Back in time for release

4 Sep 2015

There has been much drama from behind the scenes to ensure that Anees Bazmee's Welcome Back makes it into theatres on Thursday.

Apparently, the office of the censor board was opened at 10 pm on Monday night to see the final print and issue the censor certificate.

Explaining the reason for the late-night high drama in the censor office, Pahlaj Nihalani the chairperson of the censor board says, "We had asked for a number of cuts when the film was shown to the Examining Committee on the August 26. After that we waited for the producers to come back to us with the cuts. They didn't return with the cuts until Monday August 31. I had to request my censor board members to assemble all of a sudden. We opened our offices at 10 pm to view the cuts and issue the certificate. Otherwise the release would have been delayed." Apparently, the post-production and sound mixing of Welcome Back was inordinately delayed because of the film's director's observance of tools-down to protest against non-payment of his dues.

Says a source, "From his Rs. 17-crore fee, Anees Bazmee had been paid only Rs. 11 crores by producer Firoz Nadiadwala. Anees refused to work on the mixing until he was paid his balance. He was coaxed into doing so by his producers. And the film was taken with the required cuts to the censor board."