Kannada stars 'wanted' by cops!

Trust filmmaker-actor Hemanth Hegde to do something hatke when it comes to the publicity of his films. Hemanth, whose poster for his last movie Nimbehulli was featured on a Best Comedy Movie Poster site, upped his game for his next, Sa. Initially called Mathome Shhh!, Hemanth had to change the title of his film as there were several other movies with similar names.

'When we were planning the poster design of the film, one thing that struck my team was that it is often a futile exercise, as lakhs are spent on posters that barely make it a week, only to be replaced by those of a new release. Often, people don't even look at the posters, so we decided to try something that will make them sit up and take note,' says Hemanth.

His posters, which were splashed across the city, featured the main cast of the film ' J Karthik, Vijay Suriya, Samyukta Hornad and Hemanth himself ' in what appeared to be 'Wanted' listings issued by the Karnataka Police.
'I had taken my cast into confidence before making the posters. The accompanying text mentioned their real names and that they were involved in some real criminal activity and, hence, on the police's wanted list. There was a mobile number as well, and the day after the posters appeared, we were inundated with calls. Vijay Suriya and Karthik are very popular TV stars and many of our callers seemed distraught that they were involved in something criminal. Of course, we pacified them all and explained that it was only promotional material for our film. I am glad that our strategy worked,' says Hemanth.