Mumbai, Feb. 1: The jury is out on Rann’s fate at the box office, but it’s spared no effort at making news.

Literally so.

The makers of the film, which takes a look at the world of 24x7 news television, launched a media blitz ahead of the release last Friday by being part of the industry which it is dealing with.

For the past month, Amitabh Bachchan, who plays TV magnate Harshavardhan Malik in the Ram Gopal Varma film, had been frenetically promoting the film.

On December 31, he anchored a year-ender show on Times Now encapsulating the key news events of 2009. He hosted a similar show in Hindi on Star News on the eve of the New Year.

Apart from travelling to different cities to promote the film, Bachchan also appeared on Times Now on January 26 to anchor another show on 60 years of the country turning a republic. A couple of days later, he participated in a chat show on CNN-IBN as well. Co-producer of the film Sheetal Talwar and Ram Gopal Varma appeared on Barkha Dutt’s We The People on NDTV 24x7 for a debate on the media.

Rann’s other key actor, Riteish Deshmukh, played an investigative reporter for two Mumbai-based media entities. “He did an investigative story on the water mafia in the context of the drinking water cuts in Mumbai, and another story on film piracy for TV9 and Mid-Day,” says co-producer Madhu Mantena.

The Rann team also published three issues of a 10-page newspaper titled Rann Times and circulated it across several multiplexes in the country.

The film’s website, hosted on sify.com, has been designed like a TV box with a news ticker running across the screen exactly like on news channels. A section on the website profiles a prominent journalist every day and includes some of the leading journalists across media entities.

“Rann means battle. And a battle is a fight between organised forces. In the context of civil society and its complexities, large organised forces (read news channels, political parties and industrial czars) are not just involved in a fight with each other, but more importantly and frighteningly, they are battling a war within themselves and this is especially true of news channels,” Varma wrote in a front-page editorial in the promotional paper.

The director has received flak from the media in the recent past, first for his film Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag, and then in the aftermath of the 26/11 attacks for accompanying then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on a tour of the terror-hit Taj and Trident hotels. Deshmukh lost his job soon after.

“It is not enough these days to do paid advertising. There are multiple media platforms available and you have to take a 360-degree integrated approach to promotions. We circulated nearly six lakh copies of Rann Times,” said co-producer Talwar.

According to Talwar, the two producers along with the director and the actors sat together and structured the strategy.

“Amitji anchoring shows came about because his character of Harshavardhan Malik symbolises the voice of conscience of the country. Similarly, Riteish Deshmukh plays an honest investigative reporter in the film. So, instead of doing routine things like stars going on reality shows and dance shows, we opted for promotions perfectly in line with the theme and image of the film,” Talwar added.

With Bachchan anchoring shows, the news channels also participated in the strategy. “We held discussions with TV9 for over a month, and they suggested that I do two stories for them. So, I chose to do reports on two issues that matter a lot to me — film piracy and water theft. I went to eight or nine locations, including video parlours which show films, and places where water is stolen from pipelines and did actual news reports for print and TV,” said Riteish, who plays investigative journalist Purab Shastri in the film.

Said Arnab Goswami, editor-in-chief of Times Now: “Both of Bachchan’s shows were produced by Times Now. He read the anchor links and hosted the shows. The idea obviously was to familiarise people to seeing him as an anchor which he plays in the film. For us it worked as Bachchan is a big draw. The viewer response was decent. But such unusual promotions are more an exception than a rule.”

Out-of-the-box promotions have usually helped big films like Ghajini where Aamir Khan’s haircut created a pre-release buzz. Aamir did actual haircuts as part of the film’s promotions. The actor also pulled another publicity stunt for 3 Idiots by moving anonymously in a new get-up each time and pulling off surprises. Aamir fooled the watchman at cricketer Sourav Ganguly’s house in Calcutta, for instance.

“We will know if the promotions have helped Rann or not when the box-office numbers start coming in. The film has had a slow opening, but those who saw it have liked it. So word of mouth is picking up, and the collections have improved on Saturday and Sunday,” said Riteish.