Word of mouth may help family entertainer

Word of mouth may help family entertainer

Mubarakan came as a full family entertainer after a long gap, a gap when fillers and mediocre films reigned. However, the film’s opening day collections were poor to put it plainly. To a certain extent, the promotion and the presentation of the film were not quite attractive.

The promos on theatrical as well as electronic media were really dull telling little about the film except that it was about Arjun Kapoor playing double roles with Anil Kapoor playing the uncle. Little was visible or came through about the other aspects, the talented other artistes or, mainly, the music of the film which is its asset.

The film’s projection proceeded more like a family enterprise of Kapoors which is not an added attraction. Father sons, uncle nephews coming together is neither novelty nor assures a draw.

The result was that, the film opened to 15 per cent footfalls on Friday, failed to pick up and ended its opening day with just a little over `50 million. However, the word of mouth was generally positive and the film was expected to gain some momentum over Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday improvement looked good in percentage as it was over 40 per cent but not really since the opening Friday was poor. The collections took a leap on Sunday with double the opening day figures to end its opening weekend with `226 million.

If the film fails to cash in on the positive word of mouth that it enjoys through rest of the week, it is headed to be a loser. Also, because, this is the only week it gets to establish itself as come next Friday, there is a new, bigger release in Shah Rukh Khan- Anushka Sharma starring, Jab Harry Met Sejal.

*RaagDesh is a film about a British era court martial of three Royal Army Indian soldiers who were captured by the Japanese, let off to join Subhash Chandra Bose’ Indian National Army and, later charged for the killing of some soldiers. This film is beyond comprehension.

Which moviegoer would want to pay anything between `100 to 2000 to watch this film when they did not care to watch films on Sardar Patel, B R Ambedkar, Veer Savarkar, Nehru made over the years when even the ticket prices were not so high! The only film on a political leader of whatever we call history which got some attention was Gandhi and that too its English version; the Hindi version simply failed.

The purpose of making this film about ‘unknown heroes’ of IAN defies logic and, why the RajyaSabha TV involved in this project is a question!

As for box office, the film had no commercial prospects to explore to collect a mere `5.5 million for its opening weekend.

*Indu Sarkar is another example of a film which should never have been made. The trade describes this as an enterprise of personal political aspirations. The film on the 1975 emergency bore no relevance a few months after it was over as films made on the subject like KissaaKurseeKa and Nasbandi proved to be capital loss.

This shows on the box office. The film has been rejected. The film collected `26 million for opening three days.

*Munna Michael fails. After a mediocre opening, the only day it picked up a little was on Sunday only going downhill thereafter to end its first week with a total of `308 million.

*Lipstick Under My Burkha managed `105 million in its first week maintaining low but steady collection through the week. The film is holding steady in its second week.

*JaggaJasoos added `73 million in its second week to take its two week tally to `504 million.

*Mom has collected `22 million in its third week taking its three week tally to `318 million.