‘Only for Tom Cruise or George Clooney’

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It is well-known that Rakesh Roshan and Anurag Basu are releasing two versions of Kites — one in English and the other in Hindi. The English version however, is being modified to suit the global audience.
Anurag reveals that the international version of Kites will only have a few music montages, instead of songs. He adds that the difference between the two versions is mainly the length: “The international version of the film is shorter than the Hindi version. It will be one-and-a-half hours long while the Hindi version lasts for two hours.”
But Anurag would ideally have preferred both versions to be of the same length. “I wanted to have the same length for both the movies,” he admits. “However, it is a norm internationally to have 90 minute films. Had it been Tom Cruise or George Clooney, they might have stretched it to two hours. Barbara and Hrithik are new for them; so we only have an hour-and-a-half. However, the story is the same and so is the flow.”
That Kites will have an international release, admits Anurag, is a huge deal. “I do not say that Kites will change everything, but it is a step towards making Indian films global and luring non-Hindi speaking audiences to experience the film,” he adds.
Anurag asserts that when they first started work on the film, there was no specific intention to target an international audience. “But everybody who saw the film felt it had an international appeal,” he says.