Opening to a poor response all over, each of the five films

As expected, none of the five releases of the weekend gone by -MAHARATHI, DIL KABADDI, MEERABAI NOT OUT, OH MY GOD and GUMNAAM - THE MYSTERY - has managed to make an impression at the box office. Opening to a poor response all over, each of the five films has cut a sorry figure though MAHARATHI and DIL KABADDI have still managed to fare marginally better. While the advance booking of all these films has been literally zero, the current booking too isn’t much impressive with maximum capacity reported in the range of 20%-30%.

Can one blame the post-terror poor sentiment for an unexciting response towards this film? To an extent yes, but not completely. And there are three reasons for that:

a) Five films arriving on the same day is never a good decision to begin with. Let aside eating into each other’s business, it is sheer mayhem to have so many medium to small budget films clashing with each other on the same day.

b) With audience anyways waiting for the big ones - RAB NE BANA DI JODI and GHAJINI - on 12th December and 25th December respectively, it would be foolhardy to expect them to shell out money on more films. Remember, a middle class family can’t really spend money on more than two movies in a single month and expect for a diehard movie buff who has to watch a movie regardless of number of them arriving in a single month, ’aam junta’ will always hold on to his money for a movie which he believes is the real important one to watch.

c) Sheer quality of the film. Frankly, what were the makers of films like MEERABAI NOT OUT, OH MY GOD and GUMNAAM - THE MYSTERY thinking when they unwittingly decided to bring them to theaters? These are the kinds that deserve ’direct to DVD’ release. MAHARATHI and DIL KABADDI are better but again not the kind that warrant a ’big screen’ viewing, especially due to reasons a) and b).

So what does this mean for Bollywood? Well, in an overall disappointing 2008, an addition of 5 more films that failed to generate much money for the industry. Here is hoping that RAB NE BANA DI JODI and GHAJINI truly reverse the trend and bring on the smiles back with Akshay Kumar’s JUMBO act be the cherry on the top!