A poster of Pride & Prejudice, releasing this Friday in the city

Friday, March 10: Memoirs of a Geisha. Friday, March 24: Capote, Pride & Prejudice. Friday, March 31: Crash, Brokeback Mountain. Friday, April 7: Walk the Line?

The fear hasn?t come true ? Calcutta hasn?t been given the royal snub yet again. They have taken their time to get here ? that, too, just a few weeks and not the customary few months ? but the Oscar movies are now rushing to the city screens. And in Calcutta, they have the golden statuettes to show off, rather than just the nomination nods they had boasted in Mumbai and Delhi.

?It?s great that we are getting all the top Oscar titles within a month of the Academy Awards being announced (March 5),? says INOX (Forum) general manager Vikas Syal. ?Since the numbers for English movies in the city have not been good, it wasn?t easy to get the prints to Calcutta. But the distributors have recognised that there is definitely an Oscar market here and a further delay would only lower the audience count.?

While the big studio films, like Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Walk the Line, were slated to come into town at some point of time, a small independent film like Crash could only make it to Calcutta because of its Best Picture Oscar win. Says city distributor Arijit Dutta: ?It would have never made it here otherwise. Since these films can never be big blockbusters, distributors are not too keen to release the movies in small markets like Calcutta. But with the Oscar tags, the curiosity wave will bring in the audiences.?

And the wave is expected to be bigger and better than in the other metros. ?Calcutta has the post-Oscar advantage that Mumbai and Delhi didn?t have,? explains Vikramjit Roy, head, publicity and acquisitions, Sony Pictures India, which is releasing Capote at multiplexes this Friday. ?Now, people will go to watch Philip Seymour Hoffman, Best Actor, and the movies will be promoted as ?Winner of the Academy Award for???

The charge of the Oscar brigade has also prompted a temporary time-shift to maximise footfall. ?We usually screen English movies at mornings or late nights. But these Oscar winners will get prime-time evening shows otherwise slotted for new Bollywood movies,? adds Syal from Forum.