Aamir Khan-starrer Rang De Basanti ran into a last-minute crisis with a Delhi distributor threatening to pull out just days before the film's release on Thursday.

Trying hard to cope with all the final preparations for release, the tense director Rakeysh Mehra rushed to Delhi.

"It was nothing but a distributor trying to twist our arms for a last-minute discount. This is being done quite often in quite a few territories these days," Mehra said.

Distributors agree to a price and then back out at the final hour hoping they can get the price reduced. I was adamant. I told the Delhi distributor to leave the film if he wanted. He finally came back to the price we had agreed on."

The box office prospects of Rang De Basanti are looking really bright. Mumbai distributor Anil Thadani who had earlier bought 90 prints of the film has asked for added prints at the last minute.

- IANS, Mumbai, January 25, 2006