Mumbai : One of the most awaited films, the Anurag Kashyap-directed Bombay Velvet starring Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma and Karan Johar, has chosen the digital platform hotstar to connect with millions of movie lovers directly through their mobile phones. Its stars have shot a lavish and entertaining exclusively-for-digital episode, The Bombay Velvet Club, which features Karan Johar interviewing heartthrobs Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma along with brilliant director Anurag Kashyap, on a set reminiscent of the film. The one-hour episode will be available exclusively on hotstar on Saturday, 9th May.
The Bombay Velvet Club on hotstar will be full of entertaining conversations that Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma and Anurag Kashyap have with their star interviewer Karan Johar, who sparkles in his conversational, catty, somber, wacky, quizzical and chatty avatars, getting the stars to let their hair down, speak their hearts out, and offer never-before spontaneous and unscripted personal glimpses into their talent, thinking, relationships and more.
The episode offers a never-before glimpse of Anushka singing an old Hindi film song (in the presence of Ranbir Kapoor, who is obviously a fan of her singing). It also features Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka speaking about their relationships, Karan Johar baring his heart out on how, as a lead actor for the first time, his priorities were very different and in fact much narrower than from when he was working as director.
Ranbir, Anurag, Anushka and Karan also have a free-wheeling chat about the lack of restraint in language that is evident on social media today.
The episode also features an extremely entertaining 60s Films Quiz, devised especially by Karan Johar. Fans will love the fierce competition between Ranbir and Anushka to win the quiz, during which we see the endearingly natural, friendly and unconscious way that the two stars speak, fight and laugh with each other.
Karan also speaks of how his ego received a battering when he first visited the Bombay Velvet set.
Of course the entire episode, driven by Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka, Anurag Kashyap and ‘ringmaster’ Karan, has much more entertainment, which hotstar users can enjoy by downloading the app and watching the episode for free on Saturday 9th May.
Director Anurag Kashyap said, “Karan, Ranbir, Anushka and I had a wonderful time shooting The Bombay Velvet Club. We are extremely excited about the film, and we obviously want to take it as far and wide as possible. I am increasingly amazed at the spread of smart phones all over the country, and that is why we are hoping to connect on a personal level with mobile phone users through hotstar.”
Shikha Kapur, Chief Marketing Officer, Fox Star Studios India, said, “We are delighted to partner with hotstar for Bombay Velvet. Digital is a crucial part of our media mix, as it delivers young, informed and active audiences. hotstar delivered beautifully for us when, in a world-first for cinema, we recently used it to premier the song Muhabbat Buri Bimari. hotstar is one of the most important components of our Digital strategy, and we are confident that The Bombay Velvet Club too will resonate with its users, and that will significantly help the film.”
Speaking about The Bombay Velvet Club exclusively produced for hotstar, a hotstar spokesperson said, “The Bollywood Velvet Club is an entertaining superstar-conversations-driven episode that also offers rare insights into Ranbir, Anushka, Anurag and Karan as human beings. This unique idea is an extension of hotstar’s endeavor to create original content to cater to the taste of digital audiences. The episode has been lavishly produced to the scale of the biggest GEC productions. In fact, thanks to its spectacular growth, reach and popularity, we at hotstar are confident that ‘The Bombay Velvet Club’ will create enough buzz, which in turn will add significantly to the theatre footfalls for Bombay Velvet.”
hotstar, the newly launched digital platform with compelling content across sports, TV shows and movies in seven languages, was launched on 1 February 2015. With more than 15 million downloads, the application has witnessed the fastest adoption of any digital service in the world. As a result of its popularity and remarkable growth with engaged audiences in a short period, hotstar is now the big destination for movie promotions on digital.
