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210 Responses to “Ek Villain, the rest of the box office”
Ek Villian Set For Strong Start
Thursday 26 June 2014 11.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villian is looking at a strong start when it opens tomorrow. Despite having limited face value the film has super hit music with Galiyaan becoming the second biggest hit song of the year after Baby Doll.
The film has a cost of under 40 crore including production budget and print/advertising costs and is looking at a opening which will practically ensure the film is a plus unless something goes wrong badly with content and it crashes in the weekend itself.
The opening may not be strong in the smaller cities due to the cast but its not really a big film that needs all India box office collections. The film will be hit in East Punjab as Punjab 1984 will release there and dominate all the big cities of Punjab leaving Ek Villian centres like Gurgaon and Faridabad and a couple of other cities in Haryana to get good collections. Mumbai and Central India should be best for Ek Villian.
The opening is almost surely to be in double digits and even 15 crores cannot be ruled out going by the advance. That figure will be a huge achievement for this movie considering the budget and the star cast involved. Goes to show the importance of a hit music album.
It just goes to show how overrated Holiday and Humshakals have been. Not laying the blame with Akshay or Saif but quite clearly the marketing and advertising has been good for Ek Villain and this adds to the opening. These films like 2 States, Ek Villain are getting something right without “big stars” and films like Holiday and Humshakals are getting things wrong “with stars”. The outcome though shows that certain films are clearly not hitting the potential they could, frankly underperforming.
Wouldn’t mind checking out Ek Villain myself.. partly it’s the fact that the bigger ‘blockbuster’ types have completely checked out in terms of trying to do something even minimally sensible. They are designing films for trailers. Now Holiday by all accounts is a better film and its underperformance has more to do with Akshay’s standing perhaps but the Humshakals model is the one most big films follow. They’re not even trying to do anything half-decent. Then it just becomes about the songs, the stars and a passable film. Most of the big grossers fall in this category. So it’s either Hirani or Houseful. Nothing in between! Some of these smaller films then at least promise a better soundtrack and somewhat more ‘soul’. Not in all cases of course. There’s plenty of junk here too. But the point is that there’s no reason to automatically privilege films with stars.
Ek Villain could do significantly well at the box office. The only question here is the thriller angle. Hindi films often mess these things up. The film ought to be fine as long as it stays on the romantic track. The rest remains to be seen though given the music and the likable leads this might be enough to get it to a big total. And some of the masala-like angle to the thriller could even make it enough of a sell over time in the smaller markets.
Like the Galiyan song a lot. Indifferent to the rest of the soundtrack. This ‘crooning’ that has very much defined multiplex music (and of course at the non-cinema level as well) for a number of years now gets incredibly monotonous after a while. So Galiyan is good here but most of the other songs sound similar in terms of mood and singing style et al.
Even I felt all the songs sound similar though galliyan stands out. I liked the female version of the song.
And Siddharth is so charming and Shraddha is quite pretty.
Don’t think it will affect Holiday much really. It’s on the last days of its run and will probably wrap up between 112-120cr (depending on who we choose to believe). But it does seem that it may affect Humshakals big time.
But yes, Akshay and Saif will get something to think about if it surpasses their respective initials.
I am afraid we will never know true potential of a masala fare with a big star working universally. Though Dhoom notched up big numbers but it did not work with a lot of people. There are a couple of movies lined up for 2nd half of the year..
Just hope Happy New Year turns out to be a Naseeb of this era…
Kick will be too much gimmick to work with all segments. Bombay Velvet it another movie which has potential for something big if it has gangsta undertones and Al Pacino kind of flair in story telling.
Bang Bang has HR-Kat a hit jodi but more than that, I think this movie is an excuse for a make-out session. I am presuming movie will be very steamy as HR really got interested in Kat after close encounters in ZNMD.
D3 is not the best example because it didn’t have great trending (at least judging by Aamir’s standards or those of the franchise) but there are plenty of other Aamir films that did. The most obvious example is a masala film like Ghajini that opened exceptionally for that moment in time, grossed unexpectedly, trended well and so forth. So we already know this. What’s happened though is that this absurdity called the 100 crore club was invented where by hook or by crook if you got there no questions were asked. Whether you started off at 50 and got to a 100 or did so from 70 it was the same thing. The very same logic for a 150 crore or 200 crore grosser or whatever. This is repeated ad infinitum by the trade and the media and has the effect of propaganda. And now we have the absurd situation where 5.5 years after Ghajini we’re celebrating Holiday for just getting to a 100! Solid trending no doubt (though hardly exceptional.. less than this wouldn’t even be possible… that would be a total flop) at that lower end of the scale but this is hardly optimal. Holiday is doing what BMB did. Akshay didn’t open this one big but we’re supposed to forget this. We’re supposed to forget genre distinctions. We’re supposed to forget that just recently 2 States did a 100. Similarly if Humshakals gets to 65 this is somehow ok, if it gets to 80 this is decent. When total washouts do 50 these days or when a film like Goonday does 70 or so, hardly the greatest result even for this film.
The market can support some very big numbers. And it can certainly support good trending in all kinds of genres. We’ve seen this at the multiplex level (ZNMD, BMB not to mention YJHD which threw up a massive number… so ETT and YJHD are both in the same range and yet one is supposedly a universal film for all kinds of markets! How badly must it have done after the initial rush to get to YJHD’s level!). We’ve seen a film release around the same time as ZNMD (2 weeks apart or something) in Singham and both film had good trending. There are other genres here too. So it’s not as if there isn’t enough evidence. But because this other narrative is constantly pushed it blots out reality for most people. And Holiday is again a classic example. Following the media spin everyone’s celebrating this ‘success’ and missing the most obvious question. This is simply too low a total for this kind of film and star. have people liked it? yes. But that highlights my point even more. Otherwise tomorrow if a Salman film which always looks to be on track to do 150 even in the worst case scenario suddenly does much less than this you can’t celebrate it. Jai Ho for obvious reasons didn’t receive much media/trade support because it didn’t trend like Holiday but also because Salman’s bar is much higher. And yet months later it too is being talked about as part of the 100 crore club or whatever. The same was true for Ra One in certain contexts. This is the kind of absurdity or lie that is peddled by the trade and/or media. This is why some of us have been saying here for years that you have to look out for trending in each case. If you just look at this the real box office picture emerges in every case. Within reason. DMD’s trending wasn’t worse than that of many 100 crore grossers. It was probably better than most on this score. But no matter how down Abhishek was on his luck at that point and even if DMD was hardly the BB kind of deal nonetheless all things considered a significantly bigger opening was expected. The same for Holiday and different films at different levels. You can’t say ‘Akshay’s not in the same position but if you forget this the film otherwise did fine’. That’s now how things work with stars.
As for the rest of your list I doubt any one of them will have the impact you’re talking about…
1)Kashyap isn’t that sort of filmmaker. Barfi or BMB are the right models here. Of course he’s also making a bit of a romantic film this time, he could really maximize the multiplex audiences but nonetheless he’s not a ZNMD kind of filmmaker. He still won’t have everyone on board. The film might do really well but it wouldn’t be fair to expect more than a BMB standard here or a bit more than this allowing for inflation.
2)Bang Bang sounds like an empty film which will be about stunts and dances and pretty faces and little more. Hrithik keeps getting this ‘Kites’ bug from time to time not to mention the Hollywood wannabe stuff. This time they’re even remaking a film that was insipid in the original and didn’t do anything. Now I’m willing to believe there’s more punch to the Hindi version and I’m sure it will open big but I’d be very surprised at any sort of trending here. The last time around even Krrish 3 didn’t have that trending forget anything else. So even with his father there was weakness on display for the first time, in terms of an initial and final gross, relative to the standards set by the previous one and of course other big films since.
3)Farah Khan makes circuses. This time around it’s around a dance competition with some thriller aspects to it perhaps and certainly lots of comedy. On MHN and OSO she had good enough trending. Whether she can do it again remains to be seen. OSO had a certain basic plot-line (Karz) though Farah nonetheless buried it under comedy and her larger circus for most of the proceedings. I actually think she might have had a bigger grosser here if she had been a bit more sensible. Then we saw TMK which went quite haywire. I certainly expect a big one here but I’d be surprised at anything more than CE here. Big opening, passable trending. Unless the film is much better than it looks right now. But Farah is simply too cynical a filmmaker.
4)Salman has never got excellent trending, even on Dabanng. ‘Nuff said! Which is to say that forget 3I Dabanng didn’t even match Ghajini’s trending! With far more iconic moments from the look to the songs and so forth.
5)As for Singham 2 sequels rarely match the originals on trending. Doubt that will be the case here. It could get to 150 but that would be off a huge initial, not on trending. In other words since the initial will be big 150 automatically means somewhat lesser trending.
And now to the sublime of Naseeb. All of these filmmakers should be given courses in Desai’s cinema. He too always had a circus but he usually justified it. And when he stopped doing so his films became poorer. Because of Bachchan some of these later films were still huge hits, sometimes bigger than the older ones but that doesn’t mean anything. So Coolie is a fairly pedestrian film despite all its iconic overdetermination in other ways. Desh premee which followed Naseeb is somewhat better but still not a patch on the older stuff. Mard I find not very watchable at all though it was an absolutely massive success. The whole British India angle perhaps made for something new relative to Bachchan. But the point I’m trying to make is that no one ought to reasonably prefer these later films to Naseeb or AAA or Suhaag or Parvarish or for that matter Dharam-Veer and some other films of his. The point is that even with a circus a film ought to have some ‘sense’ to it. The circus cannot exist for its own sake. Today filmmakers think that it’s all about the initial and so films must be designed to maximize these. But that’s a circular argument. You make films that no one can see beyond an initial rush and then say they don’t work. Why not obsess less with the initial? Jubilees are a thing of the past but good or solid trenders aren’t. You just have to attempt a meaningful film. And so in this sense the Aamir-Hirani is the only real candidate. The other stars are either not big enough to generate those initials or too cynical to attempt sensible films even when they can do so.
I fully understand your comment and once again you have brilliantly stated everything there.
The Naseeb correlation there was due to multicast and rich visual as you too have stated Naseeb was a bit of circus in many ways and still iconic esp if you take the initial reels with that lottery ticket angle etc…. I just though out of pure ‘tukka’ (luck) things may happen and we may have a good movie in Happy New Year too and things may just fall in place. SRK was known to be sending farah back to work on script each time she approached him so I presuming some tautness. You are right about OSO only if it was tweaked a bit and then some of the farce/ ham was limited in the 2nd half. Reincarnation is big with Indian audiences which includes me too that’s why I loved Karan Arjun.
Hangama was a bizarre movie on paper but somehow the story-line integrated so well and everything fell in place which even Priyadarshan may have not imagined or set out for…. Same with No Entry….so miracles do happen….!!
Happy New Year was a project that’s been in the news since MHN. At that point Bachchan was supposed to do a part, presumably the Boman one. Also I don’t think there was a double in it then as there is now. Whether it’s a BB-like double or an actual one remains to be seen.
Oh many of my predictions have been wrong in many cases.. I suppose that’s never happened to you..
On CE my point wasn’t about the total but the graph of that film. Big opening (week 1), passable trending thereafter. Put differently if HNY repeats OSO’s trending it will be at 300 crores. Or more if the week 1 is proportionately bigger. It’s certainly possible but Farah Khan will have to be sharper here. We’ve seen with any number of stars and genres that films open big and don’t trend well.
no but even that would be the same. The problem isn’t getting to 300 as a big enough film/franchise with a major star could do it. It’s about getting there with a certain trending. So for instance if HNY did 175-180 in week 1 and then got to 300 it would indicate some level of liking for the film but it would still not have had Ghajini-like trending. For the latter it would have to do 350. To do a 3I it would need way more than this. Now in a way it might be paradoxically true that it’s easier to get to a ‘historic’ number from a strong but not really historic start and harder to do so from a truly extraordinary one. Why? Because you rarely have the combo of a film with substance or a certain quality that even with the right star cast can also generate the biggest ever initial. For the latter you usually need either a franchise or at least a great first time circus. Or an exceptionally hot star in a ‘better’ film (ETT.. at least on paper) with the right co-star et al. The better film is not very likely to be a circus at the same time. What happens then is that with a lesser film the producer-director in question decides to put on a huge circus and get the biggest initial possible. Such a film doesn’t have legs but the final total is of course still a big one. On the other hand the more sensible film doesn’t have the circus logic going for it. Hence 3I opened big but the real deal here was stability day after day, week after week. It got the biggest week 1 number and so forth, it was hardly a slouch but on day 1 it wasn’t the biggest number imaginable. Hirani in any case doesn’t make that sort of film. Another way of saying this is that with Dhoom the expectations are so sky-high that they’re not easily met. Of course surprises are always possible. YJHD grossed more than anyone might have thought. But then the audience also didn’t go in with those sorts of expectations.
Mohit Suri is talented and all his movies have been decent. Siddhartha is kjo prodigy so the movie has an added buzz to it. Will wait for reviews to go for this one. Not a fan of Shraddha much and getting really sick of star kith and kin dominating bollywood these days and its getting repulsive to a point where feel like giving up watching movies altogether until a srk type springs up on his /her own fervor / ardor /vehemence…
The background story is very important for me to like a movie star….
Peekay could be political so have bit of a doubt but Aamir has done well to change the narrative with media clips of his outing with PM Modi otherwise a large section would sit out considering PM Modi is flavor of the season….
One has to be. Otherwise one cant survive. The experience of Fanaa and how the Chopra’s suffered because of his stance. Just watch Shobhaa’s tweets. She no longer touches sensitive topics directly. Once bitten twice shy.
his greatest manipulation has been in getting Ghajini or 3I to those totals. Even more disgustingly he made successes out of Lagaan or RDB and so on. His most manipulative move, his dirtiest trick in fact has been to try and do good films and then trying to get credit for these when they work. So I do agree with you on that. I wish he were a completely non-manipulative, humble guy like SRK who’s always only been about his work. With dirty tricks Aamir was able to get in more from 3I than what SRK got from a remake and the sequel to this remake combined. He’s really suffered for his principles. And for his saintliness even Yashraj played dirty with him giving him RNBDJ and JTHJ while Aamir got D3. So I am completely sympathetic here.
once again, you can’t live without mantioning SRK 🙂
if Remakes were so easy, the baap of all films “Sholay”, how did it’s remake do with baap of bollywood in it?
Sanjana got the point I was trying to make, you just live in your world where everything has to have a propaganda. the point was on person, not their movies. All al somewhat manipulative, i was just saying aamir is pro at it.
Put aamir in JTHJ and see how much it makes, think of Mann.
As alway, I have to do this to you everytime you sepak of SRK. SRK is in conversation, where is abhi???
You know if I believed you were just mentioning Aamir without any agenda I’d also have to believe that Modi was a communist. Might be a personal bias but I’m not likely to believe either thing.
On remakes I’ll actually support SRK once again. It’s not his fault if neither Don even had the Agneepath kind of start. Remakes aren’t easy.
Now on the rest the moment one introduces Amitabh Bachchan in a debate involving anyone else (at least in Hindi cinema) I know one is being non-serious so there’s no reason to respond. Admittedly I used to insult such folks at one point but then I realized that I was the foolish one for even attempting this sort of thing. If someone wants to question Tendulkar or Bachchan (and so on) the polite thing is to leave the interlocutor with a good psychiatrist’s reference.
Finally on Abhishek if one thinks he’s nobody, not even in the top 100 I’m note sure how bringing him up as a response to a SRK claim makes any kind of sense. A quick example — if I say France has economic problems or political ones or whatever one might talk about Britain or Germany or whatever. But how would it sound if I introduced Nigeria? if your claim (not mine) is that Abhishek is like Nigeria you’re bringing him up makes the opposite point. But if you’re going by what I’m saying I don’t buy a lot of the media/trade narrative anyway. Of course your point might well be that SRK is like Nigeria to Aamir’s Germany. That’s another matter. In that case maybe the Abhishek thing holds.
Actually one last point. Put Shahid Kapoor in DDLJ and see how it makes the very same gross. So I guess I might agree with you there. I wouldn’t say the same for Ra One though. This is not a challenge every star could have handled..
And don’t keep responding to this again and again today. I don’t like kicking opponents after they’re already down. And hey it’s not my fault if Abhishek has a double in HNY! But take some heart… in the history of Hindi cinema a central star never has a double..
” I don’t like kicking opponents after they’re already down.”
You’ve been down for past 14 years so I under your frustation.
Once again, where is SRK and where is Abhi?
On HNY, you can take comfort in abhi having double role, once the movie releases, i hope you’ll take it like a man and not come up with foolish excuses like you alwasy do. thinking D2, D3, etc…
actually I’ve never been at war with the facts unlike your brigade. I was justified in my sense of BB and I think everyone agreed with me once the film released. On D3 I wasn’t and this was clear to me just after the first trailer. Let’s see whether HNY is more like BB or D3! You think it’s the latter so you have nothing to worry about but hey I’m not sweating! On taking it ‘like a man’ unfortunately I can’t subscribe to these sexist statements. As for the rest there’s a serious debate to be had about Abhishek, which again isn’t about being at war with the facts. But it can’t be had with folks who are simply not serious in this sense. Whether it’s out of delusion or whatever, it’s simply not serious. And one sees it in your case with the Aamir remarks. One doesn’t have to go as far as Abhishek. one even sees it with the remarks on Amitabh Bachchan. There’s a game one can play where one constantly makes it about the other person and so forth. But one’s acceptance of the facts cannot be dependent on someone else’s attitude (even assuming everything one is saying is correct). I can’t say I’ll accept some of the challenges Abhishek has faced if you accept some of the challenges SRK has. I can’t say I’ll accept it’s day right now provided you accept it was night before this.
And finally and also as I’ve said before I must be doing something right when it comes to SRK or Abhishek or whoever. You are here. I am not on your blog!
Sometimes one causes offense precisely because one’s statements touch a chord..
You have to admit though that AB Jr is certainly left in the dust. Not only are the newbies miles ahead of him in terms of public and BO acceptance, now even “supporting actors” like Ritesh are getting ahead of him. He just appears to be out of the running. Not a single upcoming film of him looks like it will help him (he’s not going to get any mileage from HNY just like he didn’t from D4) and his solo All is Well les said that better. No way can it be a HIT. I think AB Jr just needs to hang it up… go “behind the camera” into production or something. Who knows maybe his Kabbaddi gig will be a good landing spot for him. Kida sad for an AB progeny…doesn’t have the typical hero looks (which is ok) but he doesn’t even seem to work on other parts to compensate for this… can’t dance, doesn’t have the physique just plain come across and lazy. Even his attitude seems to be laden with arrogance of late…wasn’t like this before.
Alas, need to find a better actor to root for.. I’m done with AB Jr.
I don’t think anyone in their right minds will blame SRK. But this incident highlights how the mind-boggling epidemic has permeated every strata of Indian society. Somehow these very men become docile outside of India. But in India, they develop an uncontrollable urge to rape. There is something seriously wrong, psychologically disturbing in Indian men.
Its bizarre but must say these incidents pick up more in summer months…it’s a case of feeling hot, hot, hot? There are biological reasons why summer is linked to increased sexual activity and heat /sunlight has a direct effect on the brain’s serotonin production, according to researchers. Heightened libido is also due to lots of dopamine which triggers the production of testosterone—a hormone that controls sex drive…
I did some research on this when I noticed suddenly in summer months the streets of Mumbai would be full of magazines covers with intimate poses and selling like hot cakes. All these filmy mags would have a mamta kulkarni or raveena in striking poses. I vividly remember one such cover of Raveena – Jackie of Movie magazine…..someone can dig it up if you have the means !!
Distribution of free porno is an option which should be looked into and people taught to better jerk off than rape someone ….or maybe rape is just the mindset ??
Saw a promo of Ek Villian…this should do well…
Haven’t seen that girl before ..let’s see
I like the guy Sid –he has potential –though he needs to work on his dancing & emoting –but he has a presence, looks & intensity (& he can run!)..all the best !
As for humshakals –if it makes 60 cr+, it’s decent …
Both saif n sajid are coming off flops (rather disasters!) –infact all three heroines are coming off disasters–heck even the producer has a flop spree. To add, everybody ripped it apart. Haven’t seen it but anything above 60 + means it’s not a tank–& anyhow I t’s nearing ‘talaash numbers’-heard it’s already made 40 odd by satellite rights etc . Saif n sajid will survive to fight another day…
Some good points by ms dhoni, z, sanju…
I award the comment of the day to —
“Bang Bang has HR-Kat a hit jodi but more than that, I think this movie is an excuse for a make-out session. I am presuming movie will be very steamy as HR really got interested in Kat after close encounters in ZNMD.” 🙂
Can someone suggest me some good Korean movies on Netflix – graphical nature of content is not a problem. Have seen Pieta, Dumplings, Man from nowhere, Oldboy, Chaser, I saw the devil, A bitter sweet life in last 2 months and amazed to find that 4 of these 6 movies have been copied in Hindi. Old boy (Zinda), Chaser (Murder 2), A bitter sweet life (Awarapan) and I saw the Devil (Ek Villian). The Bhatts seem to be raiding these Korean film industry and we never knew (or at least I didnt).
Memories of Murder
Tale of Two Sisters
Spring Summer Autumn Winter and Spring (though this is a very different Buddhist sort of tale.. by Kim Ki-Duk who also did Pieta.. any of his other titles can also be checked out)
The Housemaid (on netflix this is the remake of a classic film of theirs from the 60s.. unfortunately this older and far superior version isn’t available but you might want to check out the newer one)
Anything by Hong Sang-Soo (again very different from the usual action stuff, some of his important work isn’t available on netflix though there are others that are.. some of this stuff you should be able to find on youtube with subs.. though with the cc option you can only watch it on a laptop or an iPad.. if you use appleTV or something to project it onto a bigger screen you won’t get the subs)
Among more guilty pleasures enjoyed the Host a lot. Actually the same director also made memories of Murder (mentioned it earlier) and also Mother.
In general I must say that though I’ve liked a number of their films I can’t say I’m crazy about their cinema at any end of the spectrum. Which is not to say some of the films aren’t well-done.
Ek V is remake of I Saw the D? Good God. Korean films should be left alone. This isn’t to say that I Saw The D is a great movie in itself but it has its own sensibility. One cant touch that. And The Host is no way just a guilt pleasure watch.
Hope Ek Villain isn’t a total I saw the Devil remake. Wouldn’t be much fun otherwise. I don’t want to give things away here but looking at the Hindi trailer looks like they’ve changed some of the focus. In any case bit disappointed that this is the case. Where did you read about this? On a related note though this is the kind of theme that has been done quite a bit in Tamil cinema for about a decade or more now.
Satyam: This news of Ek Villain being a remake of I Saw The Devil has been doing the rounds for long now (in any case the director here is Mohit Suri who had earlier ripped-off two other Korean films- Murder 2 which was a mixture of Chaser and Sadak, and Awarapan which was a remake of A Bittersweet Life with a bit of Bhatt’s own Awaragi thrown in for good measure. To be honest I quite like Awarapan. Suri does have this knack of ta keeping the narrative engaging enough- I also like his “Woh Lamhe”. Even Aashqui 2 wasn’t bad). But you are right that it does seem like they have tweaked things here (for instance Lee Byung-hun’s cop has given way for a gangster here). I think that inspite of having seen the original I will be able to enjoy Ek Villain simply because while I Saw The Devil was very good, unlike an Oldboy (or for that matter, most other Korean films from the genre) it isn’t really about plot twists or twist endis or whatever- it’s relatively straightforward.
BTW Bong Joon-ho’s “Snowpiercer” has released at your end of the world. This is a terrific film (it’s getting fantastic reviews as well, doing 91% at RT)- I did see the original longer cut earlier this year, but I hope it gets a theatrical release in India sometime soon. It’s a film made for the big screen.
ose fans who are hoping ek villain might gross more than some other stars films,they should realise that ek villain might gross more than teir favourae actor films.The top 5 still remains the top 5.Though aamir khan became superstar in 2008.Evnen Ranbir has to give another 150cr grosserto make it top 6.To dislodge someone in top 5,someone has to give 2 180 grossers,and should be consistent at bo.No newcomer can do that.We know how Besharam flopped.Ranbir doesnt have popularity in single screens.
Ek Villian Has Very Good Initial
Friday 27 June 2014 12.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villian had a very good opening of around 55-60%. The film opened very all over though East Punjab due to Punjab 1984 and Delhi city were slower than other areas.
Delhi city had an advance which was less than Transformers – Age Of Extinction and though it managed to open on par with that film it was still lower than other places like CPCI Rajasthan and Gujarat. At some multiplexes where tickets rates are lower in the morning the film actually had full houses. In East Punjab though the Punjab cities were slow Haryana was strong.
Ek Villian even managed to open well in Kolkata which is a hard market to crack unless you are Shahrukh Khan. It could be due to the fact that the directors last film Aashiqui 2 had huge appreciation with a fantastic extended run in West Bengal.
The film has been made at a reasonable cost and as expected on this start the film is a success unless something totally goes wrong on Saturday and Sunday. The main task for the film will be does it have the appreciation to become a grosser or does it remain a success on the basis of its initial.
yes and which puts the openings of films like Holiday and Humshakals and of course their eventual grosses in perspective. If one was still needed! BOI has been very soft on Humshakals calling the first week ‘decent’ and what not. Perhaps doing better than Himmatwala is ‘decent’! Now they’re celebrating Holiday for doing well because it’s barely scraping past the gross of a Salman flop! Taran also has no questions about its ‘hit’ status. Suddenly these guys who are only about big numbers have become big proponents of trending..! 2 States did a 100, BMB did a 100, Barfi did the same. But we’re somehow celebrating major stars in major genres for getting the same. BOI meanwhile keeps calling Jai Ho the biggest grosser of the year so far as if that means anything. As if the film did 150 or 200 and is the year’s biggest. A film could do 90 and be the year’s biggest if every other film does less than this!
But one has to evaluate within an environment and subject to limitations.
Today’s huge numbers in some way mean nothing compared to small numbers from previous years because today the numbers are helped by the growth is distribution channels.
On the other hand, today’s numbers are more meaningful because these days there is so much competition from sports and other alternatives.
The state on the economy, trend cycles, genre, etc also impact the BO.
Therefore Jai Ho (as bad as it may be) needs to be celebrated for being the “biggest hit” of the year (so far). If for argument sake you shift The Beatles to today’s age, the success would be quantitatively different. Or shift “This Is The End” to a century ago, will anyone even get that movie a century ago ?
I just don’t buy BO comparasion over time or between movies of different genre etc.
to be honest I buy the ‘distraction’ factor only upto a point. Because while on average jubilees and those kinds of things are a thing of the past this in some ways offers a false choice. It shouldn’t have to be a choice between a silver jubilee and a 10 day run! Specially not when in the very same country, in Tamil cinema for instance, a regional industry which is like Bollywood for its larger region (Telugu is huge too but not hegemonic in the same way, certainly not historically but not even today even if in the production/market sense the gap is narrow) and which faces many of the same challenges from global cinema and of course from Bollywood as well. Here you have much more stable patterns for hits, such film safe still expected to last for some weeks at a certain level if not longer. Then you turn to Hollywood, surely the most distracted society on the planet, and you have films that regularly put up minimally big grosses for their scale of production and show certain trending patterns as well. And unlike Bollywood no one celebrates anything in Hollywood just for crossing 200 m or whatever. Everything put together has to make sense. and most blockbusters routinely do this. So if it can happen here why not in Bombay? Plus in Hollywood you’ve also seen with Cameron a director who’s done a Sholay kind of deal twice. We’ve seen ho the Dark Knight trended. There have been other films in other genres. Now most blockbusters don’t enjoy this kind of trending but when you watch them it’s not surprising. Whether in Hollywood or Bollywood you still have to make something relatively ‘better’ to have that trending and not just completely formulaic cinema that pushes the right buttons, makes for a relative enjoyable ride, but otherwise doesn’t make any sort of impact whatsoever. Nonetheless Hollywood at least knows how to push those buttons. Bollywood doesn’t even do this. When you have an ETT doing 150 crores or so in an initial period and then just adding 30-40 crores to this it’s a tank by Hollywood standards. No such trending pattern would be called a hit in Hollywood or anything close to a success. Nor does this happen in Tamil cinema even as we speak. It did not even happen in Bollywood till relatively recently (we forget that even the iconic SRK stuff though it of course depended on a ‘shrunken’ metro market was nonetheless stable in those places.. I remember VZ’s trending seeming poor relative to what other films were doing in those days, MP got a bad shake in the media but each film today would on just those trending patterns outdo most of today’s biggest grossers! so even in Bollywood things were different until quite recently.. and of course even today when Aamir can do it routinely for many films and when there are other such films both at the masala and multiplex end there is simply no room for excuses.. it’s not as if Ghajini is one of the greatest films kind of deal.. it’s a solid film, not even very remarkable for its original industry, this sort of better remake or something comparable could be attempted all the time.. we see with Holiday how despite opening weakly the film has remained quite stable.. so if you make the better film you get the results.. when you just attempt junk you can’t expect much more than an initial).
And so upto a point one can agree with these reasons but they don’t explain why the opposite is possible in every other situation. Even in Bollywood there are enough examples.
BOI commentary is based on the selling price of the movie rather than the potential of the movie. So humshakals first week is decent based on the budget and if it reaches to 70 crores will get the pass marks too. But from potential point of view it is a disappointment. Same for Holiday. Jai Ho was the maximum grosser of the year but from selling price perspective it is average grosser and BOI is not calling it a hit. Your comment is apt from the potential point of view as all these hits have underperformed.
I’ve heard all these things before Krrish.. they’re completely inconsistent and choose the narrative that suits them. Not to mention the fact that not only are the selling prices not verifiable but BOI are also dishonest about them in terms of the narrative. The entire narrative just doesn’t stand up to reason in this sense. In other words since one never has to produce verification one can pretty much make any claim one likes and base it on ‘prices’. But notice they’re not doing this for Holiday. They’re trying to put a positive spin on it and hence they’re constantly talking about how it might or will cross Jai Ho or by now has done so. As if that’s a standard. Similarly when they call the Humshakals first week decent they’ve been far more negative on many other films. So unless there’s complete honesty in these matters the commentary isn’t worth anything. One can look at everything from various sources and arrive at a general sense of the film but that doesn’t mean one can trust any single narrative out there.
IF in Bollywoodistan we had the same infra structure, same lifestyle, same demographics etc, as Hollywoodistan, THEN an expectation of similar trending for the same kind of movies would be reasonable.
BUT everything here in Hollywoodistan is so different. Why then you expect similar results.
I get your point but even for Krrish 3 BOI was the only site which reported close to reality. On Holiday their initial commentary did talk about the costs being lower than Jai Ho and hence though it behaved like Jao Ho (sub par opening compared to expectations) it had a chance to reach hit status. Holiday is a 50 crore movie and I think its a clean hit cost wise.
BO update: ‘Ek Villain’ has massive, humongous start!
By Taran Adarsh, June 27, 2014 – 12:55 IST
The business is showing an upward trend! After last week’s HUMSHAKALS that was panned by critics and yet managed to post decent collections at the box-office, this week witnessed the battle between the much-talked-about and keenly-anticipated film EK VILLAIN and the Hollywood giant TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION. Apart from these two major releases, another film that will be competing fiercely is the Punjabi biggie PUNJAB 1984.
Living up to the expectations, EK VILLAIN dominated the market place with a massive opening across all sectors. In fact, the tremendous hype that the film had generated prior to its release has resulted in an overwhelming start everywhere. TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION, which was expected to pose a tough competitor to EK VILLAIN, was, in fact, sidelined by the massive start that the Mohit Suri-directed film has fetched. However, both these big ticket ventures will be affected in the Northern belt due to PUNJAB 1984 ruling the roost.
In a nutshell, EK VILLAIN is expected to be the first choice of cinegoers, while PUNJAB 1984 is expected to lead in North.
Humshakals First Week Business
Friday 27 June 2014 11.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Humshakals grossed around 51.25 crore nett in its first week. The film had a decent weekend but had a drop of 55% on Monday from and the normal weekday drops..
The weekend had seen better business in circuits like Mumbai, Delhi/UP and East Punjab but the film held better in the weekdays in places like CP Berar, CI, Rajasthan and Gujarat. The first week collections are the fifth best of the year after Jai Ho, Holiday – A Soldier Is Never Duty, Gunday and 2 States .
Overall its a fair first week but the film is dependent on what sort of business it can get over the next 7-10 days or so.
Holiday Is Biggest Grosser Of 2014
Friday 27 June 2014 12.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Holiday – A Soldier Is Never Off Duty grossed 10 crore nett approx in its third week making it the highest grossing film of the year till date. The film has now grossed 109 crore nett going past the 108 crore nett of Jai Ho.
The film may the end the first half of the year as the highest grossing film if Ek Villian remains lower and going to that level is a huge ask for Ek Villian.
The third week did see a drop in business of 65% as compared to the 55% drop in week two but that was mainly due the release of Humshakals. The film is likely to do an all India distributor share of around 57 crore with Mumbai topping at 20 crore plus.
awareness of indian army and sleepers cell (with no nonsense approach and no pro sympathetic tone on terrorism) was nicely done despite all the drawback and certainly murgadoss is one of the best indian director we have
feel in many ways its better than ghajini as its more original though both of his movies being bilingual sucess which again is another rare achievement
Lost to the Grim Realities of India
‘Siddharth’ Follows a Father’s Search for His Son NYT Critics’ Pick
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
JUNE 26, 2014
Mahendra Saini (Rajesh Tailang), the meek, sad-eyed protagonist of Richie Mehta’s touching film “Siddharth,” is a resident of New Delhi, with a wife, a son approaching puberty and a younger daughter. He ekes out a living on the streets fixing zippers, touting his service through a bullhorn, but business has been bad. In the film’s opening moments, he says goodbye to his son, Siddharth, who is leaving on a bus to work in a factory in distant Ludhiana. The boy’s employer, Om Prakash (Amitabh Srivasta), is a distant cousin of Mahendra’s brother-in-law, Ranjit (Anurag Arora). Both are hardened in ways that Mahendra is not.
Siddharth is scheduled to return home for a holiday after a month away, but when Mahendra meets the bus, he is not on it. Mahendra contacts Om Prakash, who angrily complains that Siddharth ran away two weeks earlier. He would never do that, Mahendra insists. Several days pass, and Mahendra, increasingly worried, consults a traffic cop, who directs him to the police station where Roshni (Geeta Agrawal Sharma), the brusque official in charge of missing persons, scolds him for violating child labor laws. Had he sent Siddharth to school, his education would have been paid for by the government, she says, and scoffs, “You people never learn.”
Mahendra mumbles helplessly: “Business was slow. We needed the money.” He doesn’t have a single photo of his son; he can only guess that his age is 12 or 13; and he can barely operate a cellphone.
Borrowing money from friends, Mehendra sets out to find his son, first making the 200-mile trip to Ludhiana, where he discovers from the boy’s roommate that Siddharth left behind his possessions. It is a sign that he might have been abducted, a too-common fate in India, where thousands of children are kidnapped and dispatched to the streets to beg. The roommate offers one other possibility. Siddharth may have ended up in Dongri, a place some people have heard of, although no one seems to know where it is. In Mahendra’s mind, it becomes a mythic destination: the end of the rainbow, the place where dreams come true.
On one level, “Siddharth” is a cleareyed neorealist film in the tradition of Satyajit Ray. It gazes unblinkingly at the extremely bare living conditions of Mehendra and his family. Its portrayal of impoverished, careworn people barking at one another and protecting their territory in a daily struggle is bracingly hardheaded.
The only sign that the movie has a bleeding heart is a too-pretty score by Andrew Lockington that is glaringly out of step with the film’s vision of urban poverty. As Mahendra’s quest widens, eventually leading him to Mumbai, he begins to lose his grip. At one point, he is so desperate that he begins collaring street boys whom he mistakes for Siddharth. The trip becomes a bitter learning experience for a man who, although only in his 30s, has retained many of the qualities of a child.
What a heart wrenching story which is still relevant in India where so many kids go missing and parents search for them.
Thanks satyam for posting this.
Komal Nahta @KomalNahta · 6h
EkVillain biggest opening for Ekta Kapoor, Mohit Suri.Total busines of SidharthMalhotra’s SOTY will perhaps be first week biz of Ek Villain!
Komal Nahta @KomalNahta · 11h
OUTSTANDING opening for Ek Villain all over India!!
“On the whole, Ek Villain is a super-hit, a blockbuster. It will score in the multiplexes and the single-screen cinemas, in ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ class centres, and will be loved by the masses and the classes alike. It has tremendous repeat value – yes, tremendous repeat value despite being a suspense thriller.”
Ek Villian collected 14.5 lac on Day 1 in Kanpur, Humshakals had done 7 lacs. We are looking a huge Day 1 here considering a 2200 screen count. 15 crores + is on the cards for sure
Even though I’m not as big of an Amitabh Bachchan fan as a lot of people here, even I cringed and was disgusted at the scene in which Sid Malhotra walks to a door into a room where some people are watching Shahenshah. Then Sid (attempts) to act like Bachchan in Shahenshah. It was an obvious and terrible attempt to show Sid as “the angry young man”.
I know you were interested about this movie for the thriller/revenge aspect and I think you’ll be disappointed by this movie in terms of that. Ideologically and fundamentally I had a lot of issues with this movie. 3 movies come to my mind-Baazigar/Darr and Ghajini. Baazigar/Darr because of the whole justifying the villain’s actions and Ghajini because of the wife being killed and husband taking revenge aspect. The justification given for Ritesh’s actions were weak-just because he is a “middle class man” in India, he needs to beat/kill women to take his frustrations out and this is supposed to be okay. IMO it does send a bad message. In that sense Baazigar (which is also troubling) and Darr were less troubling for me. I know you had problems with Baazigar, so I can bet you’ll have even more problems with this movie in that sense. I quite liked the love story part in Ek Villain, it was much better than the revenge part.
Performance wise Shraddha is the same bubbly girl we see in every other movie, although I warmed up to her as the movie progressed. Sid Malhotra was good in patches. He’s definitely improved since his dumb SOTY Karan Johar days and he had a good presence/look. The only problem was when he said words! Ritesh was good, but he didn’t steal the movie like I thought he would. KRK was damn hilarious as the wife beater/douche bag. His character was terrible but just seeing KRK on screen was amusing. The songs/BGM as we all know are excellent. Action was okay and production values-I don’t know how this cost 40 crores to make, it doesn’t look anymore expensive or better than a Jannat/A2/other Mahesh Bhatt/Ekta Kapoor movies.
I’m actually thinking about this movie more than I would like to and expected to because of how they justified Ritesh and whatnot. I might have to watch it again.
thanks.. this was a great read.. I was more interested in the romance here. The larger problem with the ‘remake’ bit is that you either need stars you’re interested in to watch it again when you know the entire story or it’s the kind of subject where it matters less because it’s not a thriller. If I hadn’t seen the Korean original I might still have checked it out. And even now I wouldn’t mind it for the romance bits. But that’s not the entire thing!
On another note didn’t have a problem with Darr. Had some with Baazigar. The film was entertaining but to have that kind of cold-blooded murder and to the justify it using the figure of the mother was a bit sickening. Of course the audience went along with it which is the problem! In the 70s you always had the mother at the center of things. She would suffer, undergo numerous humiliations, finally when the son grew up and became what he did because of this experience he would either direct his anger at a social or political construct that enabled the mother to suffer in this way or in the lesser film he would simply go after the ‘villain’. Sometimes he would even fall in love with the villain’s daughter. Even if he didn’t he would never go after anyone but the villain. He would even protect the daughter on occasion and shame the villain. In this entire set of possibilities the Baazigar one never existed.
Your second paragraph is very interesting and I agree about the remake part. I had seen both bengali versions of Heropanti and Main Tera Hero before the two came out and since their stories were weak, I found myself fast forwarding through both.
This film is plain silly. Whats worsebis that it takes itself too seriously and takes too long to come to the point. I prefer the original because it came straight to the point and was far more engaging.
Quite frankly, I dont remember watching a more immoral film than this one since Baazigar (that was shocking). By providing a backstory to Ritesh and justifying his actions and killings, the director is treading on dangerous ground. The way the film is handled, some immature sons of bitches may easily be influenced into taking more disastrous steps against women. And why? To release the frustration of a middle class man, as one of the characters say in the film.
Mohit Suri is here to make money by making unoriginal films with no imagination of his own except providing hackneyed, done to death love angles. He aint a bad filmmaker. What’s needed is some originality and more responsibility!
If this film is as good as Baazigar, I wont have a problem. But why it is always women who are at the receiving end of all violence of frustrated males in these gory thrillers? And why to justify it as you said? This will send a wrong message to the wrong people.
I remember watching Baazigar all those years back and thinking similarly– that a killer’s actions are somehow being justified.But there are too many films that are plain irresponsible and frankly immoral , sending out wrong messages to weak minds.
the songs are too good, but at the hall I saw a lot of frustrated faces, they came expecting it to be Ashiqi- 2 and were disappointed to see so much violence.
PS -I went for the 8 pm show, it was full and as we were coming out the line for the next show was pretty big.
My friend who hated the movie remarked- “Mujhe Inn line mein khade hue logon par taras aa raha hai” !!
Imo Ek Villain should get 14-17 cr(wh) ore first day, close to 50 by the weekend & depending on how it’s liked (haven’t seen it) do about 75 -95… Nothing ‘humongous’ or ‘massive’ (as taran /Komal are shouting out!) but good for this star cast/project
Have only seen a promo or two of 1 villain
Somehow I don’t like this sound too much (nor did I like ashiqui 2 music)—
Even this girl shardha doesn’t seem interesting imo..
The ONLY worthwhile thing in Ek VIllain seems the rise of a new lead star —
Sid Malhotra (have said so since SOTY)…
Like his presence, looks and poise–all the best to him
The reason why this is massive is because of the screen count. The screen count is a mere 2200. 50 crores on that screen count means it is operating at 80 percent levels which is unheard of these days. Jai ho did the same numbers in 4000 screens. That was an underperformance but you get the drift right? I have a feeling this will click in single screens too. If this is accepted and we will know on Monday this might even touch 150 crores. The second day is around 15 crores which means it is rock steady on Saturday. Expect a 18 crore Sunday which means close to 50 crores which is phenomenal for that screen count.
Ha U r again getting carried away to 150– just like with ‘holiday’ wherein it’s settling down at 110-120 (as I had predicted)…
Look, I know all this talk of ‘screen counts’ & ‘trending’– are good on paper–there’s already some ‘history’ to this..lol there are multiple other factors that kick in..
Also do u think with double the screen count–the percentage occupany will remain 80 percent or the producers will have the guts to release in double screens with this star cast ?
So it’s not that simplistic..
Don’t wish to revisit it again…the regulars are aware..
..it’s not an accident that many here have stopped making any predictions now 🙂
Anyhow-Plz read above–I have said it will do 50 over the weekend –And may skirt 100 cr(wh)ores …
Haven’t seen the film but theoretically 150 is also possible (given the strong music etc) but it’s v difficult
It will need the equivalent of (my original challenge to dhoom3) of dhoom3 making 350 or even 400 which was possible after that start (before the slump!)
Now ‘trending’ has been stripped to a dirty word on this v blog in full public glare 🙂
Necessitating unfair moderation etc
Anyhow, have to agree with Satyam on the misuse of words like ‘massive’ & ‘humongous’–can be used for numbers produced by flicks like d3/krish 3/CE..
Since it is Raman period, 150 is a possibility but we will know on Monday. On holiday I said 150 and later said 120 after day 1 as day 1 was below par. I do agree with satyam on usage of superlatives too but this one deserves the usage more than the rest.
Leaving aside the issue of how correct or incorrect Apex is in these matters or others (and I’m afraid he’s rather less right then he would like to think.. then again he is perhaps more right here than in his unfortunate pronouncements on how the game of soccer is played) it’s fortunate for Krrish that he doesn’t belong to that primitive school of thought where being wrong sometimes or often in these matters causes deep psychological anguish or at least suggests one has been less of a man or something!
Contributors come from different countries with different background (education etc), hence all else being equal, very diverse sets of thoughts are expected.
Some fun is productive, but then a blog like this wants people to share their thoughts. Personal attacks therefore are in the long run very counter productive.
It’s better to express some caution with your comments and not universalize things this much, specially on such sensitive issues. I have edited the earlier comment. It’s more trouble than its worth. I see some of where you’re coming from but precisely because these issues are serious one must never run the risk of tarnishing an entire group or what have you. Even if you did’t intend to do this your language might have been more careful.
This is again Ankit Tiwari….the guy who was recently in news for rape charges and all the wrong reasons.
He is turning to be a great music composer/singer. After the initial euphoria died down on the brilliant title track Tum hi ho sung by Arijit Singh, I was hooked on to Sun Raha from Ashiqui 2 composed and sung by Ankit , which left a longer lasting impression and continues to be my favorite.
A good example to illustrate why humor, especially intelligent humor is so hard.
When the guy claims, that his grandfather’s funeral (burning his grandfather) was funny, this bit ceases to be funny.
When he says that the holocaust (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust) was funny, we know this guy is not just pathetic, but is a certifiable creep. Which sane person says such filth about the holocaust?
I know what you mean. He’s attacked, the three Khans (no, no not those, only one from them) – Sajid, Farah, and SRK.
Salman and Amir have been quick to associate with this Modi fellow.
But I think he wanted to be sarcastic when he says he laughed more at his grandfather’s funeral or the holocaust – meaning there was nothing funny there, and that the film produces grim feelings as at these occasions even more.
Did you forget to take your meds today?? talk about overreacting to an unfunny digital short .. and you seem to imply that if the person is Gujarati, then he must be anti-muslim, IMO that attitude is just as sickening as anything mentioned in the video.
Do you really need to be told in how many ways this bit is sickening ? Really ?
This guy says he laughed at the Holocaust. After hearing that I am shocked that you still need anything more that will summon the proper perspective from within you ?
But say if he had not said that he found lighting up his grandfather funny, say he had not disparaged the memories of million of Jews that died of genocide, say none of that happened, do you not find the stance too aggressive ?
Given the fact that the spirit of countless of those that died in the race riots of Gujarat under the watch of NaMo are still looking for justice, some sensitivity is required. The last thing one can accept is a Gujarati speaking dude praying to his God to kill a minority’s career.
If you cannot show any sensitivity to ALL of the above. if you have to instead attack me then dude there is nothing I can say that make you see how wrong this comedy bit it.
I am really surprised that Satyam has let this comment of Bandra stand, with one sweep he has managed to implicate all Gujrati Hindus, has a Namo Phobia….and is pretty much stating that Guajaratis should not criticize any Muslims…..
He is a like a slow poison and would not be surprised if he had ties with ISI.
this guy should be booked for hate speech, anywhere else he would have been BANNED from the blog !!
P.S.- OLD Gold shows her/ his true colors as well here !!
this is not a thread for politics nor is any other political thread active on the blog at the moment. Once in a while one can put up a comment or two but knowing your history you’re more likely to put up 10 or 15!
good now you restored it and btw who initiated political discussion in first place, you want to have it both way i guess
actually you have more the history of using political examples, i do it on political thread but if you say or something don’t be scared of counterview
btw i have access to dashboard and can see how comment goes to trash and can restore it but haven’t used it to delete or restore comment ever and that says everything
Ek Villian Records Excellent First Day Figures
Saturday 28 June 2014 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villian had an excellent first day as it recorded collections of 16-16.50 crore nett on day one. The all India collections were similar to Jai Ho with multiplexes being better and single screens less. The film is the first real opener of the year as Jai Ho was a wider release and although collections were good they could should have been better for its release.
The collections were fantastic all over with some circuits recording the highest collections for the year. Delhi/UP, East Punjab (despite competition from Punjabi film Punjab 1984) and Mysore were all better than Jai Ho and tops for the year. West Bengal may also make this list.
The opening day ensures its success and its remains to be seen how big of a lifetime number it finally puts up. The first day was always expected to be huge but it has actually come out a couple of crore more than the huge expectations which is rare.
actually given the greater print count and the star in question the Jai Ho opening was not “good” but rather poor. How mildly and euphemistically BOI have referred to it!
Ek Villian Set For A Huge Saturday
Saturday 28 June 2014 23.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villian is looking at another big day as it Saturday collections should come in the 15 crore nett range. It is a drop from Friday of about 10% but that was inevitable due to the excellent collections on day one..
Ther drop at some single screens is a bit more than normal but that is probably as collections were high for this type of film on its first day. The multiplexes look set for a strong run as overall they were pretty much at the same levels as Friday with some places seeing growth and others dipping a bit.
The Saturday business like the Friday business will be only second to Jai Ho this year. Ek Villian is looking at 50 crore nett or near 50 crore nett weekend. .
Ek Villian Continues Fantastic Run On Saturday
Sunday 29 June 2014 13.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villian had another excellent day as it collected around 15.50 crore nett on day two as per early estimates taking its total to around 32 crore nett over two days. The film is heading for a 50 crore nett weekend.
The film held up superbly at multiplexes with some even showing growth from their lofty levels on Friday. The business in North was the same as Friday while Mumbai circuit dropped a little as collections in Gujarat saw a 20% drop.
There was a drop in most circuits but with collections being at such high levels on day one this was bound to happen as films that open strong on Friday morning never repeat the same thing on Saturday morning and so it is all about catch up with the latter shows on Saturday.
So much of unsaid words, gestures, and the most trivial of everyday conversations speak volumes about every character, etched to perfection, and the world around us in this instant classic. Nebraska is one of the rare gems that have resurrected my faith in modern day cinema and in filmmakers like Alexander Payne. Having just finished watching it, I cant sum up my thoughts into words that can do justice to the film, but in a nutshell – I’d call it the best of last year, trumping Her, which was my favourite from 2013. It narrates the story of a family, which appears disconnected at first, with grumpy characters — an old man who just doesn’t care to speak up or pay attention to what goes around him, and a wife whose nagging just doesn’t seem to end. However, when under danger from mean relatives and neighbours who wanna take advantage, the family stays united. It’s the charming details and the moments that take your breath away. Bruce Dern’s Woody is so flesh n blood and such marvellously played by the thespian, it’s hard imagining you aren’t going along this journey with him.
Good review
Alexander Payne is quite a perceptive maker
He was gr8 in sideways & specially effective in ‘descendants’ wherein he extracted clooneys career best ..
Ek Villain – 50 Cr weekend is very good, should go past 100Cr easily; don’t see any issues at all(unlike some of them suggesting here).
Mohit Suri directing 9 films by the age of 33 is remarkable, I see potential in him to make a great film someday when he stopped relying on Korean films skeleton.
i think weekend was good . the way BOI was commenting they would have given it hit at 80 also. with average trending it should have made it third much. but this is a colossal fall.
I have deleted a number of political comments. Rocky’s response here followed by my own to him and to Bandra NRI will be the last word on this particular topic.
all big hyped movies do well on monday, real test is on tuesday imo. there is significant drop in bms bookings on tuesday. Anything less than 15% fall will be good.
It’s funny how parameters keep changing. Before release I thought this movie would do max of 50 crore. It’s already over it so as far as I’m concerned the movie is a success. Don’t matter to me if it collects that 50 crore in 50 weeks, 5 weeks, 5 days or in the first show itself.
How many really thought that this movie would do about 70 crores in week 1?
I’m not very surprised actually.. there’s a reason why some of us keep saying most of the big movies underperform. These days any movie that gets that minimal initial is on course for 100 crores. Just this year we’ve seen this for 2 States. This could do more than that depending on how it trends later on. This is precisely why it’s absurd to celebrate movies with big stars for doing 100 or more than this. Somehow the biggest stars only have to live up to the same standard that Arjun Kapoor or Siddharth Malhotra seem to! I would say it’s absurd except that it’s not really so. It’s simple dishonesty but there are enough people willing to buy this to advance their own agendas and/or their favorite stars.
“Somehow the biggest stars only have to live up to the same standard that Arjun Kapoor or Siddharth Malhotra seem to!”
LOL! Or are we saying that Arjun and Siddharth are moving on a par with Salman and Akshay? Hmmm…
I feel there is a shift in whole dynamics which is mostly occurring due to changing demography and younger audience now starting to zero on and root for their favorites. Whatever be the merits of the films , I simply never thought an Arjun Kapoor could do a 100cr and Siddhartha Malhotra a raging 50 cr in a weekend!!
Just recently better movies with similar aged actors were at the 40-50 cr benchmark in best case scenario.
Would be interesting to see how Humpty Sharma with Varun , Kill Dill with Ranvir and Bombay Velvet with Ranbir is received.
Its bad news for Salman and the older crowd but also gives them an impetus to do shift gears and bring more depth and substance to not only their performance but to the proceedings. Among the big trio Sallu has his Prem stuff albeit releasing after a good 1.5 years to back him up. Aamir is intelligent enough and has been changing gears for a while now and SRK too has Raees and Fan which seem more story based on paper….
It is heartening to see new ones are accepted and this will make movies more democratic. Of course, the well established will try every trick to maintain their positions but it will be diminishing returns after a while. Age is catching up with all of them. A simple looking lass like Shraddha making her presence felt is a good sign.
The 3 khans have nothing to worry about for at least another 5 years.
Salman has enough fan following and has Barjatya film coming up. Aamir will do another hirani and won’t have issue getting some other big films, SRK has HNY coming up, Fan, Raees, Rohit Shetty next. I think going forward, these 3 khans and Hrithik movies has to do minimum of 150 crore.
Real happy to see newcomers like Varun, Sidhhart, Arjun, etc finding success and the success of these new comers means trouble for those who’s been in industry for more than 10 years and have done really nothing. No producers have lot more choices to chose from.
I think you have a point here. the younger 15-30 demographic is the most influential one in multiplexes. The next best is the somewhat older ‘family’ crowd. But in terms of showing up right away for a movie or watching it more than once the former cannot really be beaten. Of course you sometimes have an overlap between the two in which case the film can really put up big numbers but on most average days, comparing like for like, a film that attracts that younger demographic opens bigger. Conversely by the same token it doesn’t trend as well because that same younger demographic is much more likely to be distracted by newer releases (specially when most are geared around this group anyway) or something else whereas the family audience that might not truly show up for a film without good enough WOM will stand with it in the long run. Now occasionally you will see a film like YJHD where there is enough critical support in both groups and there are huge numbers. On the other hand the average Salman film or something comparable might be big enough (because of the star or the package) to attract ‘everyone’ for a short period of time but here most people in those two demographics will end up either not caring for the film or disliking it outright. These are ‘circuses’ that always attract the largest audience initially and this is the reason why a number of filmmakers from Salman’s directors to Farah Khan do as much as they can to squeeze in as many item numbers as possible, stars as possible, all sorts of other frills (less so with Salman himself because he’s red hot though much like the mass Telugu/Tamil star every film of his comes equipped with a certain bag of tricks and is not spontaneous even in the mildest sense.. in other words it’s a not a ‘narrative’ like Ghajini or something.. it’s simply a collection of ‘moments’ from item numbers to dialog meant to induce claps or whistles or whatever) to maximize the initial. In other words if the star alone could get it done you wouldn’t need to go crazy with this other stuff. But other than Salman at the moment and obviously Aamir there is no star at the moment, none whatsoever, who can pull in the audience without those frills attached. In some ways the Houseful logic though abysmal in terms of this franchise is in refined fashion the logic of the entire industry. Very few stars escape this and no very major star can typically. Why? Because this whole craziness of comparing stars only in terms of absolute grosses and not looking at other factors and so forth (though a distributor would never do this the narrative that is advanced in the media/trade matters) puts a kind of pressure on stars that is not the obvious box office one. In other words if SRK does 5 films in a row that are somewhat more meaningful but they gross about 140 crores each off 60-70 crores initials these would be great results. But people would then say that Salman or Hrithik or whoever got a 100 crore initial or a 200 crore or whatever even though the genres wouldn’t have been comparable. So SRK then decided to go for HNY and put on the biggest show possible. Now Aamir is in the rare position where he’s built up enough prestige over time that he can do Talaash or D3 or Hirani and just get the biggest initials possible each time. Without putting on a circus. Once upon a time (even when SRK was at his peak) the rule was that if you the biggest star or the most iconic one you got some of the best commercial films at hand and those were enough to get you the biggest initials. Today that is no longer the case. And it’s a self-serving logic. If you made somewhat more ‘sincere’ films like Ghajini or something you’d get bigger initials another way. But since it’s easier to do so by just running an ad campaign and no one penalizes you on trending grounds you do for the low hanging fruit.
All of this is connected to another point. Inasmuch as Bollywood is increasingly about a certain Hollywoodization in some very structural ways the star matters less and less. Obviously there are still bigger stars and smaller ones and certain kinds of projects are designed with the former in mind. But the ‘logic’ of the two is often the same. In other words if you make a nothing film and take Salman you feel you’ll gets certain audience. You can keep costs lower on average with him. On the other hand if you take SRK or Hrithik and still have to put on a super-production (krrish, Bang Bang, Mohenjadaro, HNY, Ra One..) the opportunity costs here are much greater. And even those films though they promise the biggest initials hardly ever trend even decently. You can do much better with YJHD at a fraction of the cost.
People often argue that things are different in Hollywood. The real difference here is that they know how to tap the right demographics with the right films. They don’t just depend on summer blockbusters. Even here you routinely see teen movies and so forth beating films with bigger stars. Because if a film is simply going to be about ‘consumption’ and ‘entertainment’ (understood in the ‘stupidest’ way) you can prosper quite a bit with ‘dumb’ films. For anything else something more meaningful needs to be made. Aamir has by and large stuck to the latter model since Lagaan (even some years before this to a great extent). Salman is entirely about the former one (he never pretended to be otherwise at any stage of his career.. he’s the one star who cannot be blamed in this sense.. if you are this kind of star-actor you cannot do anything else). Everyone else falls in between. But in this sort of chaotic Hollywood-like paradigm where attention spans are short whether it’s YJHD or Agneepath or 2 States or Ek Villain or what have you people move on after the initial. The big star in some of these cases does attract people to the theaters all else being equal but most of the time not because the audience thinks he will offer something special but that his films will just be ‘fun’. No one goes to Bang Bang expecting anything other than a joy ride. If you’re going to have this particular sort of joy ride Hrithik and Katrina might be better than anyone else. when (and if) such a film works no one comes out of the theater feeling impressed by the stars or the film! They see Hrithik’s body, they see Katrina’s body, they see a few moves, they see an exotic beach somewhere, and they’re happy. The audience is as debased as everything else! Once again with this paradigm in effect you need the star who can really single himself out. Once more with Aamir one might feel he’s doing something different or at least his commercial stuff is more meaningful. With Salman he has so far singled himself out by producing such initials at a constant rate. So while everyone can profit in those same genres no one has been able to match his frequency in this period. So there are these two models with Aamir’s obviously being the more viable long-term one.
And here I should also add that in a way this whole game about who’s the top star based on the last three releases or who did 100 crores how many times or who opened a film to 12 crores on opening day versus 14 crores etc etc.. all of this stuff, leaving aside the dishonesty and leaving aside all the agendas, is simply beside the point most of the time. It is if anything a desperate attempt to impose the older star order on a much more diffuse system. Again like Hollywood where it’s hard to tell at any given point who the topmost star is. You can probably arrive at a list for a top bracket though within it it’s not easy to say who’s over or below someone else. But beyond this the ‘facts’ in this sense just don’t matter the way they once did. Because again and in the absence of that very dominant star (either in the box office sense.. this is not just about being in a top bracket but being better than every peer in a very obvious sense… or in the De Niro one.. you don’t have the biggest box office numbers, not even close but you have incredible prestige as an actor.. say Stallone v De Niro..) the actual numbers don’t matter very much beyond issues of basic viability. So yes on most days a producer will be willing to invest 100 crores on certain kinds of stars as opposed to others but this ‘fact’, obviously correlated to the initial the star in question can generate or not, is not a wider cultural one in the sense that it once might have been or put differently such a star is still part of a group and hence ‘replaceable’. So it’s not about saying whether Hrithik is doing better than Abhishek. He manifestly is in the box office sense. The question is whether he’s doing something Salman or SRK or whoever cannot and is he doing so at a lower opportunity cost? If not he is simply one of the ‘options’. The other question is whether he can generate his capital as a star to do better with somewhat more meaningful or risky films a la Aamir? If not then he cannot carve out something singular even here. Which is why the moment a new star arrives with a big enough hit (say Ranbir Kapoor) he too becomes one of the options. The older star holds on to his box office position but he’s now part of a great crowd which by definition means the achievement becomes less special. It’s one thing to do 150 crores if you’re the only one getting there and quite another if 6 other people are doing it as well and 10 others are always in position to do so! And the reason this is important is that this older star will then always face pressure to keep jacking up the numbers which in turn will keep pushing him in the direction of the ‘circus’ and consequently the great initial followed by a bust. This logic will essentially hold. Doing it the Aamir way is infinitely harder. Because even at the best of times it’s very difficult to do meaningful films that work in a very significant way.
It is precisely in such a chaotic system that the shelf life of a film matters. people remember RDB or Lagaan or DCH or TZP or whatever. No one remembers CE beyond a point. Because it’s completely disposable cinema. The same goes for all the other stars. Can anyone tell one Salman film from another barring Dabanng? They’re all the same more or less. What is Hrithik doing today with Bang Bang? The same stuff that he established in his first film. I look good, I work out every day, I have some great moves etc etc. Now there’s Mohenjadaro which will be JA all over again in a different period setting. What’s SRK been doing for a number of years? CDI was one exception. Otherwise from Farah Khan to Don one circus after the other (for different reasons). One doesn’t even need to get into Akshay Kumar. Ranbir has a nice balance as of now. But the question is whether he can hold onto this over the long run. Because at some point stars get tempted. They’re happy to do more of YJHD because it gets them the numbers. Or if one wants to be more charitable the market pressures are great on them to repeat those moments. Which is why they have to actually sacrifice some of that success early on to avoid that trap. However the Abhishek example post Guru (Yuva through Guru) shows up that this balance is hard to keep striking and whether it’s bad luck or whatever if you don’t maximize the box office (repeats of BnB or BM or Sarkar or the Dus sort of moment or what have you) you might be in a position where different doesn’t work and you can’t get back to the BnB moment. Then you need serious reinvention at some point. So I do understand why stars make many of these choices. But the larger point is that a lot of these ratings and so forth are simply pointless in a Hollywoodized system.
There wasn’t much circus in CE yet it made about 225 crore.
why Farah khan + circus + askhay in tees mar khan didn’t give same result as farah khan + circus + shahrukhkhan in MHN and OSO?
You can say things to please yourself but reality is always something else.
Whatever SRK, Salman and Aamir has been doing for over 20 years, it’s been working and will continue to work. Hrithik is up there too with Ranbeer very close behind. Akshay will be continue to be in good position and now you have all these new comers who are doing great.
what’s gone is actors who’s been here for more then 10 years and who has done nothing.
Don’t be so offended by my views..! Specially if you consider them worthless. And since you keep coming here I know I am not just saying this stuff to please myself.!
I’m not offended at all but i do consider them worthless because on one had you want people to believe that a movie which collects over 200 crore just in india is nothing and then on another hand you want us to believe that some crappy bhi movie with crappy colletion which is less then 1/4 of most SRK, salman or Hrithik movies is something to marvel at.
Funny, when all fails, resort to pedestrian stuff. Not my fault you put all your eggs in abhis basket. Not sure why you’re getting mad, just put up another long post on how other actors 100 crore or 200 crore is nothing and abhis ¼ of it is something.
I think no one really goes to a movie, except for a “joy ride”. It is not as if movies serve as an educational tool.
I think the point that Z is perhaps trying to make is that given that the focus (most of the time) is consumption, the quality (even if exist) is secondary. Producers rather sell circus because there are buyers. Hence if circus + xyz sells, then they will not stop and wonder if they should instead substitute abc in the place of xyz because abc has more merit .
Two things are clear, one, whether sheer luck or talent, a lot of the younger stars have served the system well, hence producers today have choices.
Two, some stars, even in the right set-up, just have not delivered.
Abhishek does not make big budget circus because his track record does not allow him that luxury, not because he has a choice and by design he refuses to do it. Abhishek does what the market allows him. To his credit he was survived 10+ years and that is enough for me to accept him as a BONAFIDE runner.
Aamir took huge risk because at that time his circus was not selling and for the sake of survival he reinvented himself. To his credit, he managed to create a market segment for himself. But a Lagaan or TZP do not come easy or often and hence he too, in order to stay in the rat race, has to resort to circus like Dhoom 3. PK in its own way will be just another calculated circus.
The biggest star will always be the one who can master big budget circus. This big budget circus is the grease that allows all the parts in the industry to move. The collective survival of the industry depends upon such circus.
The star who makes edgy/off beat movie will win some but lose many. Sadly his quality (even if it exists) will be like the moon on a moonless night (invisible and unseen).
1)Yes movies are minimally about consumption. And obviously they’re always catering to a market. Even the smallest film is doing this. And clearly this is an art-entertainment form where commerce is always a much greater part of the equation than in most others. But this does not mean that consumption cannot be married to meaningful entertainment. Every age is not the same, the concerns of every age are not the same, this is inevitably reflected in the cinema of any given age. But even in an era where audiences have by and large supported very superficial if not lowbrow entertainment they have nonetheless showed greater support for films that were meaningful or better in this sense. As long as the choice was there. If you just keep making Houseful you can make the case that these sorts of films run and something like Swades doesn’t. But that’s not the correct analogy. The point ought to be that when there is someone like Hirani offering more meaningful entertainment within very commercial genres those films do better than those of everyone else. And even if they don’t have the biggest initials (as in LRM) they trend better than every other hit. In other words the very same audience that is showing up for all these Akshay Kumar comedies or Salman films and so forth is also not giving these films strong WOM. When it’s a Hirani it is doing so. Even at other levels one can see this. OMG trended extremely well as did Kahaani. There are many such examples. These are films that make a significant gross. So it’s not just as if it’s a 20 crore deal or something. This is what Aamir has been about. Delivering the better, more meaningful product within established genres and sometimes moving away from them. And we see this everywhere. Most multiplex movies don’t trend like ZNMD, most masala films don’t trend like Singham. So on and so forth. Therefore the consumption/commerce claim hardly disallows one from making better stuff in any genre or any end of the production scale.
2)It’s not right to say that every star in an ideal world would just opt for the big budget circus. Abhishek precisely when he was strongest went in for riskier stuff. Now some of it was high end prestige cinema but no one would say that D6 was operating at the same production level as HNY! And even if it takes more consolidation for a star to get to that level this still doesn’t explain why other than JBJ (which with the very same team was an obvious choice) he didn’t go in for more obvious choices, specially when after a while it was clear that some of these were failing. Most if not all stars even when they try their hand at the risky immediately do a course correction when one or two films don’t work. Who for example does KHJJS after Raavan? Or even a bit before when your back is already against the wall. So on and so forth. I am not criticizing these choices by the way or not necessarily, just arguing against your point.
It is also about how the star perceives his or her career and the kind of aspirations he or she has. This is something fairly consistent with Abhishek because even pre-Yuva he was doing certain subjects that most stars don’t do even when they’re flopping. They flop in regular films and not doing stuff like Shararat or Bas Itna sa khwab hai or whatever. Now of course he’s doing some very commercial stuff because he’s run out of some of those other options. And it’s not as if he wasn’t mixing it up. But you always got the sense that those commercial choices were ways to enable D6 or something of the sort rather than ends in themselves. For most stars the latter is the real deal whereas the different is from time to time a bonus (when it works). Even now note how Abhishek nonetheless errs more on a certain ‘masala’ side rather than a pure multiplex one. Ironic because otherwise he’s not warmed up to masala. But even with these multistarrers they’re not really multiplex films the way Dostana was. Take someone like Saif. He too has tried a lot of stuff but he’s always stayed within the multiplex zone. Before Humshakals. So stars have their aspirations.
But let’s move on to Aamir. This idea has often been advanced that he needed to reinvent himself. Almost as if one becomes the Aamir of Lagaan and after almost as a matter of desperation! All stars should be so lucky! The fact is that Aamir despite many bad choices early on when he was young was always interested in more meaningful entertainment. He too compromised with films like Raja Hindustani and so forth but he too always stayed within a more rooted orbit as much as possible. Even at the height of the Yashraj moment he was doing RH or Indra Kumar or whatever. he was one of the top stars even then and could easily have gone with the flow but he didn’t. He reduced his volume, became more careful but nonetheless stuck with a certain course. Even after a decade in the industry he was still betting on Ghulam (hardly the biggest film around) rather than a Switzerland romance. Naturally most of these films weren’t big grossers even when they worked. But he still had a good success ratio. However he wasn’t setting the terms of the debate the way SRK was quite obviously and he did need reinvention. But the point here is that you have to believe in it. You can’t just do it cynically. And if he were that cynical he might have followed the existing trends much earlier on.
Secondly who thinks that a 3 hr 40 min film on cricket set in british India with a flop director is one’s best ticket to reinvention?! Now he looks like a genius but who thought this was the best possible move at the time? Even Aamir with his judgment knew it was a risk. Because if he had the same judgment in the 90s he might have been in a better position even then. In any case even if he had to reinvent himself, even if he had greater ambitions it hardly follows that he needed to do Lagaan! And if it’s something no one has tried before so one has a chance to set oneself apart well by definition that’s a huge risk.
But even with this he was also doing DCH, a genre which didn’t exist at the time. Later on he did RDB (again Mehra had no hit behind him), even when he did Yashraj he played an unrepentant terrorist (so within that commercial genre he tweaked things and in case this Yashraj film was far closer to 60s cinema than anything they’d done in the 90s with SRK). I won’t go through the entire list. I know you have said some of these things as well. But I’d just put the focus elsewhere as I’ve already stated. Now it’s true that he went in for D3 and so on. But note that when he did Ghajini he had no way of knowing it would be so huge since no masala in Bombay had done any such thing for decades let alone one with some seriously uncomfortable moments in it. Also note that when he did D3 he also had Talaash before it. The riskiest film (by his standards) that he had done in a long time (DG didn’t have the same expectations) and sure enough it’s his only film other than MP that didn’t trend well. There’s no harm in some insurance! And he’s done this in the past too. Fanaa with RDB for example. So there’s no harm in having some safety. And as for Hirani this combo has become huge after 3I but what actor would ever refuse Hirani on any given day anyway? And it’s not as if Hirani is doing a huge circus. If anything I think one cannot automatically expect a 3I-like performance from the current film.
3) Yes there are market pressures on any star and paradoxically they’re greater when the star is successful. I don’t expect any star to be a saint but there are different trajectories each star follows which cannot only be correlated with the box office. Whether it’s Hrithik or SRK or Akshay or Salman or Abhishek or Saif or Ranbir or any star that has been in a position to truly choose at any point in time the paths are quite different. Some of it is obviously about image and how the market perceives that star’s talents (or lack thereof) and so forth but equally a lot of it is about how the star sees himself. Can anyone honestly say Hrithik could not come up with better things to do than Kites and Bang Bang? Even within those genres. Why was Akshay Kumar avoiding masala for the longest time and sticking to these terrible comedies? What’s with SRK’s Don obsession? Etc etc. On that note SRK too tried meaningful stuff earlier. In fact he’s a guy who came in very much thinking he’d do the mix. But the other stuff once again did not work, just about at any level. The list is an awfully long one. And in the meantime he became hugely iconic doing Yashraj and reduced himself to those parts even if (and by his own admission he never believed in those films or liked them, not even DDLJ!). Nothing odd about this. Most stars follow the box office. But this is not the only possibility. SRK could have shown some more dedication to the different, tried it a bit more. Or turned his energies toward more credible projects. what happened even after CDI? So if you just want to get the biggest grossers that’s fine but that’s not the same as being forced to do that stuff. You can spend enormous amounts on an Ra One but you can’t enable a few sensible films?!
4) yes all else being equal the biggest stars usually get the biggest production budgets but once again in a Hollywood-like system even this matters less. Brad pitt rarely does those kinds of big budget deals and this has been so for a long time. He focuses on smaller stuff but no one thinks he’s less of a star because of this. Hollywood puts up those budgets only when it’s foolproof like a disaster movie or a Marvel franchise or some such thing or else when it’s the MI kind of franchise. They don’t often do this otherwise, at least over the last decade or so. yes a lot of their films are crazily budgeted but nonetheless those aren’t their most expensive films.
but the same is now true in a different sense in Bollywood. Even the biggest box office stars rarely get those budgets without any frills attached. It’s a sequel, it’s sci-fi, it’s a circus with other stars. When the same stars go solo the budgets are suddenly much more reasonable. Take CE! Or take Salman who does this in almost every single case barring ETT. The latter is the exception not the norm. And the stars know this themselves. SRK is not going to try Ra One in a hurry again. there are consequences to such failures. Both of his upcoming films after HNY are much more reasonable affairs in this sense. Akshay again doesn’t have the biggest budgets. Where are those major stars who have these super-productions on their own?! hrithik might still be a half-exception here to the extent that he goes in for the Kites kind of thing and then does some of these period romances. Obviously a big star can ensure some of these risks (even if no one was satisfied with the JA gross) but this is hardly the norm.
Thanks Bandra. Agree 100% with what you’ve stated.
Satyam knows exactly what I’m saying to him. Satyam and I will never agree on this point because he wants to believe that while other actors 100 crore or 200 crore grosser are underperformance (specially SRKs), abhis ¼ of it should be treated as some sort of achievement. Notice how he always give prediction for other actors but doesn’t for bachhan films. How genre, release date, Age of the actor, competition should be looked at for 2 to 3 stars but for all other actors, all of their films should be treated same regardless of genre, release date, budget, competition, etc..
If making successful circus was so easy, everybody would do it. Example I gave of Farah + Akshay in TMK versus Farah + SRK in MHN and OSO had a very different boxoffice result.
If you’re salim-javed, would you rather have SRK-Farhan do circus like they did with Don or would you rather have Amitabh-RGV do circus like they did with Sholay? Paying Public had given their verdict loud and clear on this.
You brought up an excellent point about “sake of survival”. I think Devgan did samthing. He was doing those routine b grade action films in 90’s and when even those were not working he started doing the serious drama roles which started his second inning.
Once again, excellent post by you and I agree with it 100%. It’s all big circus, nobody is in it to do public service, they all want to make crores.
There has to be some honesty once in a while in the posts. you can’t keep trying to sell sh!t as gold and treat gold as sh!t. People will catch on to it eventually no matter how lenghty the post is.
Satyam would agree/disagree with a lot of things provided the argument on your side was minimally in good faith. And don’t pretend otherwise. I’ve seen too many of your breed over the years not to be able to tell the difference. Abhishek is just a red herring for you (as he was for many others before you.. much as whether he did BnB or Guru or Raavan and KHJJS he was nonetheless considered to be at the same box office point). I’ve seen your statements on Aamir and Bachchan Sr as well. So let’s not play this game. I don’t mind people disagreeing with me but if an argument is made in bad faith to feed one’s personal agendas there is nothing to discuss. And don’t bother saying that you’re arguing only because I say stuff about Abhishek or SRK or whoever. I’ve heard this for years too. I’d love to believe that I’m influential to the degree that you guys are forced to respond to me (or in some cases even follow me to my blog as you have) but luckily I am more sane than that! It’s my opinion and/or analysis. Take it or leave it. No one has to be up in arms over it if they’re also pretending at the very same time that nothing I say is worth anything!
your arguments are always in bad faith so you get what you asked for, simple as that.
Your post are always in bad faith and is always trying to degrade other actors except your fav 3.
Try somethig new, you’ve been playing this games for many years now with no result.
I get it that it must be super frustrating for you to see SRK in top 3 year after year while your fav abhi is losing ground year after year. At this point he is not even in top 10, but that’s not SRKs fault so stop takign it out on him 🙂
On a side note, things don’t look good for you for few more years as HNY, Raees, Fan, Rohit Shetty next is lined up 🙂
Why don’t you read Bandra.NRI post again and take some tips from it on how to write posts.
You will not gain or lose anything by changing one person’s opinion. Winning an argument is not important. What is important is to have a conversation.
You have good points. Satyam too has good arguments. You should just learn to disagree about the the stars in question.
I saw the film on Sunday.
Clearly some negative thoughts on SS – I actually liked the film a lot. It is not refreshing or original (I found similarities to Ghajini) but I was pleasantly surprised by the performances, songs. It is a “sick” film in some sense, but I did not take offence in the immoralities being thrown out. And I liked the screenplay and structure of the film. Was never bored, songs were really nice, the love story was simple and achieved its purpose.
On the box office, it is going to do well…should be steady IMO. The music is much better comparatively to some other stuff today with more emphasis on melody
The film could have easily been an episode of X Files! Ritesh’s character was one of an utter weirdo doing horrible things for pleasuring his wife. If instead his method of violence was more horrific (maybe he could have Luis Suarez’ fangs!) you could have had Scully and Mulder come in and try and figure it out!
Ek Villain Tuesday Business
Wednesday 02 July 2014 12.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villain had a good Monday as it collected around 6.25-6.50 crore nett but collections have had a noticeable drop from Monday. Circuits like CP Berar, Rajasthan, Nizam and Gujarat have come off quite a bit from the levels over the weekend.
The drop is 15-20% from Monday which is a bit more than normal especially as Monday was also more than 50% from Friday. The film is being driven by business in Delhi/UP and East Punjab especially the multiplexes in these two circuits.
The first week business will be around 73-74 crore nett which is still a huge number despite the weekdays not performing as well as the weekend. The film is a medium budget film and its domestic theatrical price was covered by just the three day weekend business of the film.
I saw Villain, and the film is bad beyond belief: not just because of its offensive, sexist politics, but simply AS A FILM this is very poor — what dramatic tension there is “resolves” by intermission, leaving the second half as utterly dead time, with pointless flashback galore. This is really two films: a love story, and a serial killer film, and there is no reason why those two tracks are in the same film. I would be surprised if this held up (the audience in Juhu’s PVR was snickering) but over the years I have increasingly grown out of step, so might be off base here…
It can’t be ghajini –either as a film or in box office or in music or the hero …
But seems a reasonably respectable effort
After multiple attempts at ‘melodious music’ in ashiqui2 and other Mohit suri films–somehow the edge was missing esp for some one used to rahman/SEL types
But finally ‘galliyan’ cracked it –like the sound
Kaisa hai rishta tera-mera
Be-chehra phir bhi kitna gehra
Ye lamhe, lamhe ye resham se
Kho jaayein.. kho na jaayein humse
Kaafila.. waqt ka.. rok le..
Abr se juda na ho
Galliyan galliyan Teri galliyan…
For eg It’s the half a second delay before ‘kaafila’ ..
These are things that I enjoy
Here’s a case of mistaken identity – southern actor Siddharth has been receiving compliments for “Ek Villain”, which actually stars Sidharth Malhotra!
“Received so many bouquets and compliments on behalf of @S1dharthM that I feel responsible for the success of #ekvillain…thanks other Sid,” Siddharth, who featured in Hindi films “Rang De Basanti”, “Striker” and “Chashme Baddoor(2013)”, tweeted Wednesday.
Very insightful piece by Richard Brody though I absolutely disagree with him on the Transformer films (thought all the films in the series are terrible)-
“……In any case, that’s why the binary scale of good and bad, like and dislike, is essentially pointless. Movies are complex experiences—even those that are simplistic or clumsily made are rich in substance—and sometimes criticism is like the science of medicine, with advances coming from diagnoses of some dread disease that you wouldn’t want to have. No, “Transformers: Age of Extinction” isn’t a model of enlightened thought or cinematic style, but it is—paradoxically, for a movie that’s filled with computer-generated robots—peculiarly alive, animated not by computers but by the character of its director, Michael Bay, for better and for worse.
Eric Kohn, at Indiewire, doesn’t like “Transformers” much, either. But in a notable essay in which he compares it unfavorably to the Argentinian director Lisandro Alonso’s “Jauja” (which doesn’t have U.S. distribution yet) and the South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s “Snowpiercer” (which opened on Friday, in limited release), he blames the unavailability of these and other movies on Michael Bay’s series:
Collectively, these movies represent an assault on the senses that’s actively fighting against the prospects of a more varied film culture. Whereas the proactive moviegoer aims to see as many new movies as possible, “Transformers: Age of Extinction” argues that you only need to see one.
Every movie makes movie-going a zero-sum game for the duration of a screening: a viewer paying to see one movie at a given moment isn’t paying for another (with the exception of under-seventeens who buy tickets to a PG-rated movie in order to see an R-rated one playing at the same time). But there’s nothing in “Transformers: Age of Extinction” that impedes the viewing of other movies; its assault on the senses is nothing compared to the average arena rock concert.
I haven’t seen “Jauja,” but I’ve seen another Alonso movie that Kohn praises—“Liverpool,” from 2008—and it reflects a much more refined sensibility than Bay’s but not more cinematic imagination than “Transformers: Age of Extinction.” But it’s the refinement, the overtly artistic intentions of that film, that stand out compared to Bay’s, and that are, I think, at the heart of the controversy.
Alonso is, in effect, a classical composer of earnest intent and notable inspiration, and Bay is a rock musician of vulgar but distinctive extravagance. Both are well within the mainstream of their chosen niches. There’s a difference in style, tone, and tradition, and there isn’t going to be a great deal of crossover in their audiences—with the likely exception of critics. On the other hand, as Kohn points out, Alonso is paired with an arts organization that exists to sustain his sort of ambitions—he’ll have a six-week residency at Lincoln Center this fall—and I hope that “Jauja” turns up there, at the New York Film Festival, at the same time. If it’s as good as Kohn and others say, it’s just the sort of movie that the festival exists to showcase.
But complaining about pop driving art out of the market is doubly misplaced in movies, when so many of the classics (ancient and modern) are products of the mainstream industry—whether those of the high-studio era by Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks, Douglas Sirk and Nicholas Ray, or those of today’s independently financed off-Hollywood of Wes Anderson and Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese and Sofia Coppola, David Fincher and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Movies that call attention to their high-art pedigree have no necessary claim on the status that their directors aspire to. Some movies of rarefied aspiration and literary or otherwise classical tradition indeed reach heights of graceful sublimity, and proof of the increased diversity in today’s movie culture is the fact that such movies (including those by Chantal Akerman, Tsai Ming-liang, and Joaquim Pinto) find a place in the world of distribution and exhibition—one that depends, in significant measure, on not-for-profit arts organizations of exactly the sort that such exalted filmmakers as Carl Theodor Dreyer or Robert Bresson lacked during their career-long battles with the demands of commercial producers and distributors.
But there are also aspirational movies—those of the art-house consensus—that feed what might be called “upmarket” or “sophisticated” viewers a pre-packaged set of comforting verities and soothing moods that are, in relation to the rarefied cinema of classical inspiration, what Mantovani is to Beethoven. These movies join a faux-objective aesthetic of ostensibly humanistic realism with comforting, politically liberal enthusiasms to match. The problem isn’t with the point of view (which is one I share) but with its jollying. The large-scale, mass-market demagogy of movies such as “Transformers: Age of Extinction” is no worse than the niche-market demagogy of, say, “Obvious Child.” Both movies appear tailor made to their target audience’s expectations and prejudices…..”
Michael Bay’s Meticulous Excess
Posted by Richard Brody
“…In other words, Bay knows to throw the meaty cinematic bones of Tucci’s arch wit and Wahlberg’s insolent intensity to parents who are taking their children to the movie even as he hews the colossal robots’ stilted dialogue to the scale of granitic tweets. He offers a prehistoric prologue that both plays to the prepubescent balcony (what kid doesn’t like dinosaurs?) and amps up the psychic stakes of the title: blaming the extinction of the dinosaurs on the dastardly Decepticons, he lets us know from the start that if the heroes don’t save the day we, too, will face the same fate.
In addition, he really knows how to blow shit up. The scale of the destruction in Gareth Edwards’s “Godzilla” is much greater than anything in “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” but Edwards is a moralist—he takes no pleasure in filming the destruction, and conveys none. Bay has no such compunction; the massive destruction that strikes various workshops and workplaces, and Hong Kong at large, is depicted with a gleeful vigor that seemingly defies viewers to enjoy it even while knowing that such calamities, if real, would be horrific beyond measure. It’s a challenge that Bay doesn’t shrink from—his crime comedy “Pain and Gain” depended on the same double game of moral revulsion and narrative delight.
Bay has the passionate integrity of a natural cynic. He’s not a sincere sentimentalist like Steven Spielberg; he has a roguish honesty that doesn’t hide behind noble intentions and displays its ravenous appetites and crafty calculations openly. His entire hundred-and-sixty-five-million-dollar budget is there to be seen on the screen, with the price tag showing and the expected return underneath. The two hours and forty-five minutes of “Transformers: Age of Extinction” reveal his attention and concern, with each moment crafted to hold the audience through hysterical and vulgar excess. Bay doesn’t deign to extend his extraordinary control to the images; he substitutes attitude for comprehension and swagger for observation, and, for all his meticulous command over the movie’s elements of action and design, performance and effect, his taste is cheerfully execrable. He’s the Wes Anderson of dreck……”
I think this review could only have been written by someone unfamiliar with the Transformers universe, at least in its comic book and animated forms. Keeping that legacy in mind, the first Transformers was so wretched I wasn’t tempted to watch any of the others (nothing in it seemed to matter — contrast with the death, loss, and life that suffused the 1985 animated movie; the infantilisation of the public is so complete that it takes some doing to remember that the 1985 animated movie was targeted primarily at kids, while Bay’s crap routinely finds large adult audiences)..
A bit offensive, but a comment I heard at that screening in a NY cinema:
“Optimus Prime has lips?! What’s he gonna do with those, give a blowjob?!”
Ek Villian To Lead Again This Week
Thursday 03 July 2014 11.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villain is likely to be the top film for the second week running despite seeing only decent trend on the weekdays after a fantastic initial. Both of the major new releases Bobby Jasoos and Lekar Hum Deewana Dil will find it hard to challenge Ek Villain unless there is phenomenal growth for one of the films.
Bobby Jasoos is likely to lead on day one simply because the film will have a wider reach and non star cast urban rom-coms like Lekar Hum Deewana Dil have found it very hard in the last year or so.
Still even if Bobby Jasoos comes out ahead of Lekar Hum Deewana Dil it will not mean much unless its a good number or at least decent. The film may do best in Nizam/Andhra as it is set in Hyderabad but the Nizam/Andhra belt would have fared even better if it was not released in Ramadan as that is the circuit which gets affected the most. The collections of Ek Villain from Monday in the circuit are testimony to that.
Lekar Hum Deewana Dil has been well promoted despite having new faces but the genre has been struggling so it will have to surprise with huge growth on Saturday.
Bizarre release by Bobby Jasoos… making film about Hyderbad Muslim girl and shot completely over there and then releasing in Ramadan when very few of them will watch it doesn’t make sense. That would have been the best city to get maximum returns for this sort of film. Very few films are ever short in that city anymore.
How Humshakals took good opening also is beyond me…the trailers, music, dialogue, sets all look outdated and cheap…looked like some comedy from 90’s or even worse than that.
but that genre opens well these days.. actually and though I would never watch the film I sort of wish it had done well for Saif. The guy deserves to be in a better position than he is. And he too has tried a lot of interesting stuff that hasn’t worked.
SATYAMSHOT 
June 26, 2014 at 9:26 AM
Ek Villian Set For Strong Start
Thursday 26 June 2014 11.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villian is looking at a strong start when it opens tomorrow. Despite having limited face value the film has super hit music with Galiyaan becoming the second biggest hit song of the year after Baby Doll.
The film has a cost of under 40 crore including production budget and print/advertising costs and is looking at a opening which will practically ensure the film is a plus unless something goes wrong badly with content and it crashes in the weekend itself.
The opening may not be strong in the smaller cities due to the cast but its not really a big film that needs all India box office collections. The film will be hit in East Punjab as Punjab 1984 will release there and dominate all the big cities of Punjab leaving Ek Villian centres like Gurgaon and Faridabad and a couple of other cities in Haryana to get good collections. Mumbai and Central India should be best for Ek Villian.
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June 26, 2014 at 9:28 AM
Its a bad news for Holiday and Humshakals.
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June 26, 2014 at 9:30 AM
The opening is almost surely to be in double digits and even 15 crores cannot be ruled out going by the advance. That figure will be a huge achievement for this movie considering the budget and the star cast involved. Goes to show the importance of a hit music album.
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June 26, 2014 at 9:31 AM
One villain will maul 2 heroes Akshay and Saif if we can call the latter hero of Humshakals.
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June 26, 2014 at 9:42 AM
It just goes to show how overrated Holiday and Humshakals have been. Not laying the blame with Akshay or Saif but quite clearly the marketing and advertising has been good for Ek Villain and this adds to the opening. These films like 2 States, Ek Villain are getting something right without “big stars” and films like Holiday and Humshakals are getting things wrong “with stars”. The outcome though shows that certain films are clearly not hitting the potential they could, frankly underperforming.
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June 26, 2014 at 9:56 AM
Wouldn’t mind checking out Ek Villain myself.. partly it’s the fact that the bigger ‘blockbuster’ types have completely checked out in terms of trying to do something even minimally sensible. They are designing films for trailers. Now Holiday by all accounts is a better film and its underperformance has more to do with Akshay’s standing perhaps but the Humshakals model is the one most big films follow. They’re not even trying to do anything half-decent. Then it just becomes about the songs, the stars and a passable film. Most of the big grossers fall in this category. So it’s either Hirani or Houseful. Nothing in between! Some of these smaller films then at least promise a better soundtrack and somewhat more ‘soul’. Not in all cases of course. There’s plenty of junk here too. But the point is that there’s no reason to automatically privilege films with stars.
Ek Villain could do significantly well at the box office. The only question here is the thriller angle. Hindi films often mess these things up. The film ought to be fine as long as it stays on the romantic track. The rest remains to be seen though given the music and the likable leads this might be enough to get it to a big total. And some of the masala-like angle to the thriller could even make it enough of a sell over time in the smaller markets.
Like the Galiyan song a lot. Indifferent to the rest of the soundtrack. This ‘crooning’ that has very much defined multiplex music (and of course at the non-cinema level as well) for a number of years now gets incredibly monotonous after a while. So Galiyan is good here but most of the other songs sound similar in terms of mood and singing style et al.
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June 26, 2014 at 10:39 AM
Agree completely on first paragraph
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June 26, 2014 at 11:18 AM
Even I felt all the songs sound similar though galliyan stands out. I liked the female version of the song.
And Siddharth is so charming and Shraddha is quite pretty.
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June 26, 2014 at 2:14 PM
The songs now adays sounds all same and the singer voices sounds same too.
Songs from 50s, 60s and some of 70s were the best.
Even today, everytime there a scene in movie with a song playing in the background, most likely it’ll be a song from 50s thru 70s.
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June 26, 2014 at 2:25 PM
we finally agree on something!
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June 26, 2014 at 9:58 AM
Don’t think it will affect Holiday much really. It’s on the last days of its run and will probably wrap up between 112-120cr (depending on who we choose to believe). But it does seem that it may affect Humshakals big time.
But yes, Akshay and Saif will get something to think about if it surpasses their respective initials.
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June 26, 2014 at 10:03 AM
I am afraid we will never know true potential of a masala fare with a big star working universally. Though Dhoom notched up big numbers but it did not work with a lot of people. There are a couple of movies lined up for 2nd half of the year..
Just hope Happy New Year turns out to be a Naseeb of this era…
Kick will be too much gimmick to work with all segments. Bombay Velvet it another movie which has potential for something big if it has gangsta undertones and Al Pacino kind of flair in story telling.
Bang Bang has HR-Kat a hit jodi but more than that, I think this movie is an excuse for a make-out session. I am presuming movie will be very steamy as HR really got interested in Kat after close encounters in ZNMD.
Singham 2 is sure shot 150cr earner this year.
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June 26, 2014 at 10:18 AM
what about P.K.? THE BAAP OF ALL MOVIES……
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June 26, 2014 at 10:52 AM
D3 is not the best example because it didn’t have great trending (at least judging by Aamir’s standards or those of the franchise) but there are plenty of other Aamir films that did. The most obvious example is a masala film like Ghajini that opened exceptionally for that moment in time, grossed unexpectedly, trended well and so forth. So we already know this. What’s happened though is that this absurdity called the 100 crore club was invented where by hook or by crook if you got there no questions were asked. Whether you started off at 50 and got to a 100 or did so from 70 it was the same thing. The very same logic for a 150 crore or 200 crore grosser or whatever. This is repeated ad infinitum by the trade and the media and has the effect of propaganda. And now we have the absurd situation where 5.5 years after Ghajini we’re celebrating Holiday for just getting to a 100! Solid trending no doubt (though hardly exceptional.. less than this wouldn’t even be possible… that would be a total flop) at that lower end of the scale but this is hardly optimal. Holiday is doing what BMB did. Akshay didn’t open this one big but we’re supposed to forget this. We’re supposed to forget genre distinctions. We’re supposed to forget that just recently 2 States did a 100. Similarly if Humshakals gets to 65 this is somehow ok, if it gets to 80 this is decent. When total washouts do 50 these days or when a film like Goonday does 70 or so, hardly the greatest result even for this film.
The market can support some very big numbers. And it can certainly support good trending in all kinds of genres. We’ve seen this at the multiplex level (ZNMD, BMB not to mention YJHD which threw up a massive number… so ETT and YJHD are both in the same range and yet one is supposedly a universal film for all kinds of markets! How badly must it have done after the initial rush to get to YJHD’s level!). We’ve seen a film release around the same time as ZNMD (2 weeks apart or something) in Singham and both film had good trending. There are other genres here too. So it’s not as if there isn’t enough evidence. But because this other narrative is constantly pushed it blots out reality for most people. And Holiday is again a classic example. Following the media spin everyone’s celebrating this ‘success’ and missing the most obvious question. This is simply too low a total for this kind of film and star. have people liked it? yes. But that highlights my point even more. Otherwise tomorrow if a Salman film which always looks to be on track to do 150 even in the worst case scenario suddenly does much less than this you can’t celebrate it. Jai Ho for obvious reasons didn’t receive much media/trade support because it didn’t trend like Holiday but also because Salman’s bar is much higher. And yet months later it too is being talked about as part of the 100 crore club or whatever. The same was true for Ra One in certain contexts. This is the kind of absurdity or lie that is peddled by the trade and/or media. This is why some of us have been saying here for years that you have to look out for trending in each case. If you just look at this the real box office picture emerges in every case. Within reason. DMD’s trending wasn’t worse than that of many 100 crore grossers. It was probably better than most on this score. But no matter how down Abhishek was on his luck at that point and even if DMD was hardly the BB kind of deal nonetheless all things considered a significantly bigger opening was expected. The same for Holiday and different films at different levels. You can’t say ‘Akshay’s not in the same position but if you forget this the film otherwise did fine’. That’s now how things work with stars.
As for the rest of your list I doubt any one of them will have the impact you’re talking about…
1)Kashyap isn’t that sort of filmmaker. Barfi or BMB are the right models here. Of course he’s also making a bit of a romantic film this time, he could really maximize the multiplex audiences but nonetheless he’s not a ZNMD kind of filmmaker. He still won’t have everyone on board. The film might do really well but it wouldn’t be fair to expect more than a BMB standard here or a bit more than this allowing for inflation.
2)Bang Bang sounds like an empty film which will be about stunts and dances and pretty faces and little more. Hrithik keeps getting this ‘Kites’ bug from time to time not to mention the Hollywood wannabe stuff. This time they’re even remaking a film that was insipid in the original and didn’t do anything. Now I’m willing to believe there’s more punch to the Hindi version and I’m sure it will open big but I’d be very surprised at any sort of trending here. The last time around even Krrish 3 didn’t have that trending forget anything else. So even with his father there was weakness on display for the first time, in terms of an initial and final gross, relative to the standards set by the previous one and of course other big films since.
3)Farah Khan makes circuses. This time around it’s around a dance competition with some thriller aspects to it perhaps and certainly lots of comedy. On MHN and OSO she had good enough trending. Whether she can do it again remains to be seen. OSO had a certain basic plot-line (Karz) though Farah nonetheless buried it under comedy and her larger circus for most of the proceedings. I actually think she might have had a bigger grosser here if she had been a bit more sensible. Then we saw TMK which went quite haywire. I certainly expect a big one here but I’d be surprised at anything more than CE here. Big opening, passable trending. Unless the film is much better than it looks right now. But Farah is simply too cynical a filmmaker.
4)Salman has never got excellent trending, even on Dabanng. ‘Nuff said! Which is to say that forget 3I Dabanng didn’t even match Ghajini’s trending! With far more iconic moments from the look to the songs and so forth.
5)As for Singham 2 sequels rarely match the originals on trending. Doubt that will be the case here. It could get to 150 but that would be off a huge initial, not on trending. In other words since the initial will be big 150 automatically means somewhat lesser trending.
And now to the sublime of Naseeb. All of these filmmakers should be given courses in Desai’s cinema. He too always had a circus but he usually justified it. And when he stopped doing so his films became poorer. Because of Bachchan some of these later films were still huge hits, sometimes bigger than the older ones but that doesn’t mean anything. So Coolie is a fairly pedestrian film despite all its iconic overdetermination in other ways. Desh premee which followed Naseeb is somewhat better but still not a patch on the older stuff. Mard I find not very watchable at all though it was an absolutely massive success. The whole British India angle perhaps made for something new relative to Bachchan. But the point I’m trying to make is that no one ought to reasonably prefer these later films to Naseeb or AAA or Suhaag or Parvarish or for that matter Dharam-Veer and some other films of his. The point is that even with a circus a film ought to have some ‘sense’ to it. The circus cannot exist for its own sake. Today filmmakers think that it’s all about the initial and so films must be designed to maximize these. But that’s a circular argument. You make films that no one can see beyond an initial rush and then say they don’t work. Why not obsess less with the initial? Jubilees are a thing of the past but good or solid trenders aren’t. You just have to attempt a meaningful film. And so in this sense the Aamir-Hirani is the only real candidate. The other stars are either not big enough to generate those initials or too cynical to attempt sensible films even when they can do so.
of course surprises are always possible.
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June 26, 2014 at 11:35 AM
I fully understand your comment and once again you have brilliantly stated everything there.
The Naseeb correlation there was due to multicast and rich visual as you too have stated Naseeb was a bit of circus in many ways and still iconic esp if you take the initial reels with that lottery ticket angle etc…. I just though out of pure ‘tukka’ (luck) things may happen and we may have a good movie in Happy New Year too and things may just fall in place. SRK was known to be sending farah back to work on script each time she approached him so I presuming some tautness. You are right about OSO only if it was tweaked a bit and then some of the farce/ ham was limited in the 2nd half. Reincarnation is big with Indian audiences which includes me too that’s why I loved Karan Arjun.
Hangama was a bizarre movie on paper but somehow the story-line integrated so well and everything fell in place which even Priyadarshan may have not imagined or set out for…. Same with No Entry….so miracles do happen….!!
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June 26, 2014 at 1:36 PM
Happy New Year was a project that’s been in the news since MHN. At that point Bachchan was supposed to do a part, presumably the Boman one. Also I don’t think there was a double in it then as there is now. Whether it’s a BB-like double or an actual one remains to be seen.
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June 26, 2014 at 12:15 PM
“but I’d be surprised at anything more than CE here”
Is this based on your prediction for CE total of 75 (or was it 100) crore or the actual which was about 220 crore? 🙂
I think for HNY, a penny less then CE will be a failure.
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June 26, 2014 at 1:40 PM
Oh many of my predictions have been wrong in many cases.. I suppose that’s never happened to you..
On CE my point wasn’t about the total but the graph of that film. Big opening (week 1), passable trending thereafter. Put differently if HNY repeats OSO’s trending it will be at 300 crores. Or more if the week 1 is proportionately bigger. It’s certainly possible but Farah Khan will have to be sharper here. We’ve seen with any number of stars and genres that films open big and don’t trend well.
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June 26, 2014 at 2:09 PM
There’s no way it will get to 300 crore.
I think a D4 with Salman would be the best bet but kick looks/feel somewhat same so it would take a little out of D4 with him in it.
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June 26, 2014 at 2:35 PM
no but even that would be the same. The problem isn’t getting to 300 as a big enough film/franchise with a major star could do it. It’s about getting there with a certain trending. So for instance if HNY did 175-180 in week 1 and then got to 300 it would indicate some level of liking for the film but it would still not have had Ghajini-like trending. For the latter it would have to do 350. To do a 3I it would need way more than this. Now in a way it might be paradoxically true that it’s easier to get to a ‘historic’ number from a strong but not really historic start and harder to do so from a truly extraordinary one. Why? Because you rarely have the combo of a film with substance or a certain quality that even with the right star cast can also generate the biggest ever initial. For the latter you usually need either a franchise or at least a great first time circus. Or an exceptionally hot star in a ‘better’ film (ETT.. at least on paper) with the right co-star et al. The better film is not very likely to be a circus at the same time. What happens then is that with a lesser film the producer-director in question decides to put on a huge circus and get the biggest initial possible. Such a film doesn’t have legs but the final total is of course still a big one. On the other hand the more sensible film doesn’t have the circus logic going for it. Hence 3I opened big but the real deal here was stability day after day, week after week. It got the biggest week 1 number and so forth, it was hardly a slouch but on day 1 it wasn’t the biggest number imaginable. Hirani in any case doesn’t make that sort of film. Another way of saying this is that with Dhoom the expectations are so sky-high that they’re not easily met. Of course surprises are always possible. YJHD grossed more than anyone might have thought. But then the audience also didn’t go in with those sorts of expectations.
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June 26, 2014 at 10:19 AM
Mohit Suri is talented and all his movies have been decent. Siddhartha is kjo prodigy so the movie has an added buzz to it. Will wait for reviews to go for this one. Not a fan of Shraddha much and getting really sick of star kith and kin dominating bollywood these days and its getting repulsive to a point where feel like giving up watching movies altogether until a srk type springs up on his /her own fervor / ardor /vehemence…
The background story is very important for me to like a movie star….
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June 26, 2014 at 10:26 AM
Peekay could be political so have bit of a doubt but Aamir has done well to change the narrative with media clips of his outing with PM Modi otherwise a large section would sit out considering PM Modi is flavor of the season….
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June 26, 2014 at 12:17 PM
Aamir is a perfect politician/manipulator.
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June 26, 2014 at 1:44 PM
One has to be. Otherwise one cant survive. The experience of Fanaa and how the Chopra’s suffered because of his stance. Just watch Shobhaa’s tweets. She no longer touches sensitive topics directly. Once bitten twice shy.
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June 26, 2014 at 1:44 PM
his greatest manipulation has been in getting Ghajini or 3I to those totals. Even more disgustingly he made successes out of Lagaan or RDB and so on. His most manipulative move, his dirtiest trick in fact has been to try and do good films and then trying to get credit for these when they work. So I do agree with you on that. I wish he were a completely non-manipulative, humble guy like SRK who’s always only been about his work. With dirty tricks Aamir was able to get in more from 3I than what SRK got from a remake and the sequel to this remake combined. He’s really suffered for his principles. And for his saintliness even Yashraj played dirty with him giving him RNBDJ and JTHJ while Aamir got D3. So I am completely sympathetic here.
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June 26, 2014 at 2:25 PM
once again, you can’t live without mantioning SRK 🙂
if Remakes were so easy, the baap of all films “Sholay”, how did it’s remake do with baap of bollywood in it?
Sanjana got the point I was trying to make, you just live in your world where everything has to have a propaganda. the point was on person, not their movies. All al somewhat manipulative, i was just saying aamir is pro at it.
Put aamir in JTHJ and see how much it makes, think of Mann.
As alway, I have to do this to you everytime you sepak of SRK. SRK is in conversation, where is abhi???
Did i just hear abhi is not even in top 10???
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June 26, 2014 at 2:45 PM
You know if I believed you were just mentioning Aamir without any agenda I’d also have to believe that Modi was a communist. Might be a personal bias but I’m not likely to believe either thing.
On remakes I’ll actually support SRK once again. It’s not his fault if neither Don even had the Agneepath kind of start. Remakes aren’t easy.
Now on the rest the moment one introduces Amitabh Bachchan in a debate involving anyone else (at least in Hindi cinema) I know one is being non-serious so there’s no reason to respond. Admittedly I used to insult such folks at one point but then I realized that I was the foolish one for even attempting this sort of thing. If someone wants to question Tendulkar or Bachchan (and so on) the polite thing is to leave the interlocutor with a good psychiatrist’s reference.
Finally on Abhishek if one thinks he’s nobody, not even in the top 100 I’m note sure how bringing him up as a response to a SRK claim makes any kind of sense. A quick example — if I say France has economic problems or political ones or whatever one might talk about Britain or Germany or whatever. But how would it sound if I introduced Nigeria? if your claim (not mine) is that Abhishek is like Nigeria you’re bringing him up makes the opposite point. But if you’re going by what I’m saying I don’t buy a lot of the media/trade narrative anyway. Of course your point might well be that SRK is like Nigeria to Aamir’s Germany. That’s another matter. In that case maybe the Abhishek thing holds.
Actually one last point. Put Shahid Kapoor in DDLJ and see how it makes the very same gross. So I guess I might agree with you there. I wouldn’t say the same for Ra One though. This is not a challenge every star could have handled..
And don’t keep responding to this again and again today. I don’t like kicking opponents after they’re already down. And hey it’s not my fault if Abhishek has a double in HNY! But take some heart… in the history of Hindi cinema a central star never has a double..
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June 27, 2014 at 11:57 AM
” I don’t like kicking opponents after they’re already down.”
You’ve been down for past 14 years so I under your frustation.
Once again, where is SRK and where is Abhi?
On HNY, you can take comfort in abhi having double role, once the movie releases, i hope you’ll take it like a man and not come up with foolish excuses like you alwasy do. thinking D2, D3, etc…
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June 27, 2014 at 12:13 PM
actually I’ve never been at war with the facts unlike your brigade. I was justified in my sense of BB and I think everyone agreed with me once the film released. On D3 I wasn’t and this was clear to me just after the first trailer. Let’s see whether HNY is more like BB or D3! You think it’s the latter so you have nothing to worry about but hey I’m not sweating! On taking it ‘like a man’ unfortunately I can’t subscribe to these sexist statements. As for the rest there’s a serious debate to be had about Abhishek, which again isn’t about being at war with the facts. But it can’t be had with folks who are simply not serious in this sense. Whether it’s out of delusion or whatever, it’s simply not serious. And one sees it in your case with the Aamir remarks. One doesn’t have to go as far as Abhishek. one even sees it with the remarks on Amitabh Bachchan. There’s a game one can play where one constantly makes it about the other person and so forth. But one’s acceptance of the facts cannot be dependent on someone else’s attitude (even assuming everything one is saying is correct). I can’t say I’ll accept some of the challenges Abhishek has faced if you accept some of the challenges SRK has. I can’t say I’ll accept it’s day right now provided you accept it was night before this.
And finally and also as I’ve said before I must be doing something right when it comes to SRK or Abhishek or whoever. You are here. I am not on your blog!
Sometimes one causes offense precisely because one’s statements touch a chord..
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June 27, 2014 at 7:07 PM
You have to admit though that AB Jr is certainly left in the dust. Not only are the newbies miles ahead of him in terms of public and BO acceptance, now even “supporting actors” like Ritesh are getting ahead of him. He just appears to be out of the running. Not a single upcoming film of him looks like it will help him (he’s not going to get any mileage from HNY just like he didn’t from D4) and his solo All is Well les said that better. No way can it be a HIT. I think AB Jr just needs to hang it up… go “behind the camera” into production or something. Who knows maybe his Kabbaddi gig will be a good landing spot for him. Kida sad for an AB progeny…doesn’t have the typical hero looks (which is ok) but he doesn’t even seem to work on other parts to compensate for this… can’t dance, doesn’t have the physique just plain come across and lazy. Even his attitude seems to be laden with arrogance of late…wasn’t like this before.
Alas, need to find a better actor to root for.. I’m done with AB Jr.
-Mahesh
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June 26, 2014 at 11:02 AM
SRK’s driver acussed of raping a minor:
http://www.samachar.com/Shahrukh-Khans-Driver-Arrested-for-Raping-Minor-Maid-og0qKPbicjb.html
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June 26, 2014 at 11:19 AM
It is only his driver. Hope he is sacked.
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June 26, 2014 at 11:25 AM
“only his driver”
Matlab kya hai is statement ka?
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June 26, 2014 at 11:29 AM
The way it is publicised, it meant as if srk is the culprit fro employing such a man as his driver.
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June 26, 2014 at 11:30 AM
for
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June 26, 2014 at 11:38 AM
I don’t think anyone in their right minds will blame SRK. But this incident highlights how the mind-boggling epidemic has permeated every strata of Indian society. Somehow these very men become docile outside of India. But in India, they develop an uncontrollable urge to rape. There is something seriously wrong, psychologically disturbing in Indian men.
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June 26, 2014 at 12:09 PM
Its bizarre but must say these incidents pick up more in summer months…it’s a case of feeling hot, hot, hot? There are biological reasons why summer is linked to increased sexual activity and heat /sunlight has a direct effect on the brain’s serotonin production, according to researchers. Heightened libido is also due to lots of dopamine which triggers the production of testosterone—a hormone that controls sex drive…
I did some research on this when I noticed suddenly in summer months the streets of Mumbai would be full of magazines covers with intimate poses and selling like hot cakes. All these filmy mags would have a mamta kulkarni or raveena in striking poses. I vividly remember one such cover of Raveena – Jackie of Movie magazine…..someone can dig it up if you have the means !!
Distribution of free porno is an option which should be looked into and people taught to better jerk off than rape someone ….or maybe rape is just the mindset ??
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June 26, 2014 at 2:14 PM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/movie-review/Ek-Villain/movie-review/37267702.cms
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June 26, 2014 at 4:02 PM
Saw a promo of Ek Villian…this should do well…
Haven’t seen that girl before ..let’s see
I like the guy Sid –he has potential –though he needs to work on his dancing & emoting –but he has a presence, looks & intensity (& he can run!)..all the best !
As for humshakals –if it makes 60 cr+, it’s decent …
Both saif n sajid are coming off flops (rather disasters!) –infact all three heroines are coming off disasters–heck even the producer has a flop spree. To add, everybody ripped it apart. Haven’t seen it but anything above 60 + means it’s not a tank–& anyhow I t’s nearing ‘talaash numbers’-heard it’s already made 40 odd by satellite rights etc . Saif n sajid will survive to fight another day…
Some good points by ms dhoni, z, sanju…
I award the comment of the day to —
“Bang Bang has HR-Kat a hit jodi but more than that, I think this movie is an excuse for a make-out session. I am presuming movie will be very steamy as HR really got interested in Kat after close encounters in ZNMD.” 🙂
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June 26, 2014 at 4:05 PM
Can someone suggest me some good Korean movies on Netflix – graphical nature of content is not a problem. Have seen Pieta, Dumplings, Man from nowhere, Oldboy, Chaser, I saw the devil, A bitter sweet life in last 2 months and amazed to find that 4 of these 6 movies have been copied in Hindi. Old boy (Zinda), Chaser (Murder 2), A bitter sweet life (Awarapan) and I saw the Devil (Ek Villian). The Bhatts seem to be raiding these Korean film industry and we never knew (or at least I didnt).
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June 26, 2014 at 4:27 PM
off the top of my head..
Memories of Murder
Tale of Two Sisters
Spring Summer Autumn Winter and Spring (though this is a very different Buddhist sort of tale.. by Kim Ki-Duk who also did Pieta.. any of his other titles can also be checked out)
The Housemaid (on netflix this is the remake of a classic film of theirs from the 60s.. unfortunately this older and far superior version isn’t available but you might want to check out the newer one)
Anything by Hong Sang-Soo (again very different from the usual action stuff, some of his important work isn’t available on netflix though there are others that are.. some of this stuff you should be able to find on youtube with subs.. though with the cc option you can only watch it on a laptop or an iPad.. if you use appleTV or something to project it onto a bigger screen you won’t get the subs)
Among more guilty pleasures enjoyed the Host a lot. Actually the same director also made memories of Murder (mentioned it earlier) and also Mother.
In general I must say that though I’ve liked a number of their films I can’t say I’m crazy about their cinema at any end of the spectrum. Which is not to say some of the films aren’t well-done.
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June 27, 2014 at 6:18 AM
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June 27, 2014 at 7:37 AM
Thanks for this note satyam
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June 26, 2014 at 5:29 PM
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?languages=ko%7C1&title_type=feature&sort=moviemeter,asc
Korean TV dramas are also decent. I saw “Pasta” sometime back.
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June 27, 2014 at 7:38 AM
Thanks, this is useful
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June 27, 2014 at 1:02 AM
Ek V is remake of I Saw the D? Good God. Korean films should be left alone. This isn’t to say that I Saw The D is a great movie in itself but it has its own sensibility. One cant touch that. And The Host is no way just a guilt pleasure watch.
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June 27, 2014 at 6:11 AM
Hope Ek Villain isn’t a total I saw the Devil remake. Wouldn’t be much fun otherwise. I don’t want to give things away here but looking at the Hindi trailer looks like they’ve changed some of the focus. In any case bit disappointed that this is the case. Where did you read about this? On a related note though this is the kind of theme that has been done quite a bit in Tamil cinema for about a decade or more now.
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June 27, 2014 at 7:01 AM
Raja Sen’s crisp review in rediff movies. He also has started to write crisp reviews after receiving flak for his tedious reviews. Quite funny.
http://www.rediff.com/movies/review/review-ek-villain-is-too-silly-to-thrill/20140627.htm
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June 27, 2014 at 7:08 AM
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/ek-villain-tweet-review-predictable-in-parts-but-worth-a-watch/482127-8-66.html
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June 27, 2014 at 7:08 AM
Satyam: This news of Ek Villain being a remake of I Saw The Devil has been doing the rounds for long now (in any case the director here is Mohit Suri who had earlier ripped-off two other Korean films- Murder 2 which was a mixture of Chaser and Sadak, and Awarapan which was a remake of A Bittersweet Life with a bit of Bhatt’s own Awaragi thrown in for good measure. To be honest I quite like Awarapan. Suri does have this knack of ta keeping the narrative engaging enough- I also like his “Woh Lamhe”. Even Aashqui 2 wasn’t bad). But you are right that it does seem like they have tweaked things here (for instance Lee Byung-hun’s cop has given way for a gangster here). I think that inspite of having seen the original I will be able to enjoy Ek Villain simply because while I Saw The Devil was very good, unlike an Oldboy (or for that matter, most other Korean films from the genre) it isn’t really about plot twists or twist endis or whatever- it’s relatively straightforward.
BTW Bong Joon-ho’s “Snowpiercer” has released at your end of the world. This is a terrific film (it’s getting fantastic reviews as well, doing 91% at RT)- I did see the original longer cut earlier this year, but I hope it gets a theatrical release in India sometime soon. It’s a film made for the big screen.
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June 26, 2014 at 9:19 PM
For those who like to still read
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/75839.Forbidden_Bookshelf
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June 26, 2014 at 9:24 PM
The Forbidden Bookself is the pursuit of a NYU Prof
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38929.htm
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June 27, 2014 at 2:13 AM
ose fans who are hoping ek villain might gross more than some other stars films,they should realise that ek villain might gross more than teir favourae actor films.The top 5 still remains the top 5.Though aamir khan became superstar in 2008.Evnen Ranbir has to give another 150cr grosserto make it top 6.To dislodge someone in top 5,someone has to give 2 180 grossers,and should be consistent at bo.No newcomer can do that.We know how Besharam flopped.Ranbir doesnt have popularity in single screens.
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June 27, 2014 at 4:18 AM
Why does Ranbir need to do something “twice” when Akshay has never done it in the first place?
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June 27, 2014 at 5:45 AM
Ek Villian Has Very Good Initial
Friday 27 June 2014 12.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villian had a very good opening of around 55-60%. The film opened very all over though East Punjab due to Punjab 1984 and Delhi city were slower than other areas.
Delhi city had an advance which was less than Transformers – Age Of Extinction and though it managed to open on par with that film it was still lower than other places like CPCI Rajasthan and Gujarat. At some multiplexes where tickets rates are lower in the morning the film actually had full houses. In East Punjab though the Punjab cities were slow Haryana was strong.
Ek Villian even managed to open well in Kolkata which is a hard market to crack unless you are Shahrukh Khan. It could be due to the fact that the directors last film Aashiqui 2 had huge appreciation with a fantastic extended run in West Bengal.
The film has been made at a reasonable cost and as expected on this start the film is a success unless something totally goes wrong on Saturday and Sunday. The main task for the film will be does it have the appreciation to become a grosser or does it remain a success on the basis of its initial.
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June 27, 2014 at 5:46 AM
@taran_adarsh
Friday trends so far: East – West – North – South: #EkVillain has a THUNDEROUS start everywhere.
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June 27, 2014 at 7:38 AM
15 crores is on the cards here.
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June 27, 2014 at 9:02 AM
yes and which puts the openings of films like Holiday and Humshakals and of course their eventual grosses in perspective. If one was still needed! BOI has been very soft on Humshakals calling the first week ‘decent’ and what not. Perhaps doing better than Himmatwala is ‘decent’! Now they’re celebrating Holiday for doing well because it’s barely scraping past the gross of a Salman flop! Taran also has no questions about its ‘hit’ status. Suddenly these guys who are only about big numbers have become big proponents of trending..! 2 States did a 100, BMB did a 100, Barfi did the same. But we’re somehow celebrating major stars in major genres for getting the same. BOI meanwhile keeps calling Jai Ho the biggest grosser of the year so far as if that means anything. As if the film did 150 or 200 and is the year’s biggest. A film could do 90 and be the year’s biggest if every other film does less than this!
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June 27, 2014 at 9:27 AM
But one has to evaluate within an environment and subject to limitations.
Today’s huge numbers in some way mean nothing compared to small numbers from previous years because today the numbers are helped by the growth is distribution channels.
On the other hand, today’s numbers are more meaningful because these days there is so much competition from sports and other alternatives.
The state on the economy, trend cycles, genre, etc also impact the BO.
Therefore Jai Ho (as bad as it may be) needs to be celebrated for being the “biggest hit” of the year (so far). If for argument sake you shift The Beatles to today’s age, the success would be quantitatively different. Or shift “This Is The End” to a century ago, will anyone even get that movie a century ago ?
I just don’t buy BO comparasion over time or between movies of different genre etc.
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June 27, 2014 at 10:14 AM
to be honest I buy the ‘distraction’ factor only upto a point. Because while on average jubilees and those kinds of things are a thing of the past this in some ways offers a false choice. It shouldn’t have to be a choice between a silver jubilee and a 10 day run! Specially not when in the very same country, in Tamil cinema for instance, a regional industry which is like Bollywood for its larger region (Telugu is huge too but not hegemonic in the same way, certainly not historically but not even today even if in the production/market sense the gap is narrow) and which faces many of the same challenges from global cinema and of course from Bollywood as well. Here you have much more stable patterns for hits, such film safe still expected to last for some weeks at a certain level if not longer. Then you turn to Hollywood, surely the most distracted society on the planet, and you have films that regularly put up minimally big grosses for their scale of production and show certain trending patterns as well. And unlike Bollywood no one celebrates anything in Hollywood just for crossing 200 m or whatever. Everything put together has to make sense. and most blockbusters routinely do this. So if it can happen here why not in Bombay? Plus in Hollywood you’ve also seen with Cameron a director who’s done a Sholay kind of deal twice. We’ve seen ho the Dark Knight trended. There have been other films in other genres. Now most blockbusters don’t enjoy this kind of trending but when you watch them it’s not surprising. Whether in Hollywood or Bollywood you still have to make something relatively ‘better’ to have that trending and not just completely formulaic cinema that pushes the right buttons, makes for a relative enjoyable ride, but otherwise doesn’t make any sort of impact whatsoever. Nonetheless Hollywood at least knows how to push those buttons. Bollywood doesn’t even do this. When you have an ETT doing 150 crores or so in an initial period and then just adding 30-40 crores to this it’s a tank by Hollywood standards. No such trending pattern would be called a hit in Hollywood or anything close to a success. Nor does this happen in Tamil cinema even as we speak. It did not even happen in Bollywood till relatively recently (we forget that even the iconic SRK stuff though it of course depended on a ‘shrunken’ metro market was nonetheless stable in those places.. I remember VZ’s trending seeming poor relative to what other films were doing in those days, MP got a bad shake in the media but each film today would on just those trending patterns outdo most of today’s biggest grossers! so even in Bollywood things were different until quite recently.. and of course even today when Aamir can do it routinely for many films and when there are other such films both at the masala and multiplex end there is simply no room for excuses.. it’s not as if Ghajini is one of the greatest films kind of deal.. it’s a solid film, not even very remarkable for its original industry, this sort of better remake or something comparable could be attempted all the time.. we see with Holiday how despite opening weakly the film has remained quite stable.. so if you make the better film you get the results.. when you just attempt junk you can’t expect much more than an initial).
And so upto a point one can agree with these reasons but they don’t explain why the opposite is possible in every other situation. Even in Bollywood there are enough examples.
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June 27, 2014 at 9:51 AM
BOI commentary is based on the selling price of the movie rather than the potential of the movie. So humshakals first week is decent based on the budget and if it reaches to 70 crores will get the pass marks too. But from potential point of view it is a disappointment. Same for Holiday. Jai Ho was the maximum grosser of the year but from selling price perspective it is average grosser and BOI is not calling it a hit. Your comment is apt from the potential point of view as all these hits have underperformed.
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June 27, 2014 at 10:15 AM
I’ve heard all these things before Krrish.. they’re completely inconsistent and choose the narrative that suits them. Not to mention the fact that not only are the selling prices not verifiable but BOI are also dishonest about them in terms of the narrative. The entire narrative just doesn’t stand up to reason in this sense. In other words since one never has to produce verification one can pretty much make any claim one likes and base it on ‘prices’. But notice they’re not doing this for Holiday. They’re trying to put a positive spin on it and hence they’re constantly talking about how it might or will cross Jai Ho or by now has done so. As if that’s a standard. Similarly when they call the Humshakals first week decent they’ve been far more negative on many other films. So unless there’s complete honesty in these matters the commentary isn’t worth anything. One can look at everything from various sources and arrive at a general sense of the film but that doesn’t mean one can trust any single narrative out there.
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June 27, 2014 at 1:20 PM
Satyam
IF in Bollywoodistan we had the same infra structure, same lifestyle, same demographics etc, as Hollywoodistan, THEN an expectation of similar trending for the same kind of movies would be reasonable.
BUT everything here in Hollywoodistan is so different. Why then you expect similar results.
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June 27, 2014 at 6:05 PM
I’m not only talking about Hollywood. I am also talking about those Bollywood films that are trending well.
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June 27, 2014 at 1:09 PM
I get your point but even for Krrish 3 BOI was the only site which reported close to reality. On Holiday their initial commentary did talk about the costs being lower than Jai Ho and hence though it behaved like Jao Ho (sub par opening compared to expectations) it had a chance to reach hit status. Holiday is a 50 crore movie and I think its a clean hit cost wise.
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June 27, 2014 at 5:47 AM
BO update: ‘Ek Villain’ has massive, humongous start!
By Taran Adarsh, June 27, 2014 – 12:55 IST
The business is showing an upward trend! After last week’s HUMSHAKALS that was panned by critics and yet managed to post decent collections at the box-office, this week witnessed the battle between the much-talked-about and keenly-anticipated film EK VILLAIN and the Hollywood giant TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION. Apart from these two major releases, another film that will be competing fiercely is the Punjabi biggie PUNJAB 1984.
Living up to the expectations, EK VILLAIN dominated the market place with a massive opening across all sectors. In fact, the tremendous hype that the film had generated prior to its release has resulted in an overwhelming start everywhere. TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION, which was expected to pose a tough competitor to EK VILLAIN, was, in fact, sidelined by the massive start that the Mohit Suri-directed film has fetched. However, both these big ticket ventures will be affected in the Northern belt due to PUNJAB 1984 ruling the roost.
In a nutshell, EK VILLAIN is expected to be the first choice of cinegoers, while PUNJAB 1984 is expected to lead in North.
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June 27, 2014 at 5:45 AM
taran adarsh @taran_adarsh · 3h
#Humshakals Fri 12.50 cr, Sat 12.59 cr, Sun 15.04 cr, Mon 5.10 cr, Tue 4.25 cr, Wed 3.75 cr, Thu 3.12 cr. Total: ₹ 56.35 cr nett. India biz.
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June 27, 2014 at 5:49 AM
Humshakals First Week Business
Friday 27 June 2014 11.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Humshakals grossed around 51.25 crore nett in its first week. The film had a decent weekend but had a drop of 55% on Monday from and the normal weekday drops..
The weekend had seen better business in circuits like Mumbai, Delhi/UP and East Punjab but the film held better in the weekdays in places like CP Berar, CI, Rajasthan and Gujarat. The first week collections are the fifth best of the year after Jai Ho, Holiday – A Soldier Is Never Duty, Gunday and 2 States .
Overall its a fair first week but the film is dependent on what sort of business it can get over the next 7-10 days or so.
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June 27, 2014 at 5:48 AM
aran adarsh @taran_adarsh · 1h
#Holiday Week 1 – ₹ 68.69 cr … Week 2 – ₹ 31.05 cr … Week 3 – ₹ 10.29 cr. Grand total: ₹ 110.03 cr nett. India biz. HIT.
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June 27, 2014 at 5:48 AM
Holiday Is Biggest Grosser Of 2014
Friday 27 June 2014 12.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Holiday – A Soldier Is Never Off Duty grossed 10 crore nett approx in its third week making it the highest grossing film of the year till date. The film has now grossed 109 crore nett going past the 108 crore nett of Jai Ho.
The film may the end the first half of the year as the highest grossing film if Ek Villian remains lower and going to that level is a huge ask for Ek Villian.
The third week did see a drop in business of 65% as compared to the 55% drop in week two but that was mainly due the release of Humshakals. The film is likely to do an all India distributor share of around 57 crore with Mumbai topping at 20 crore plus.
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July 2, 2014 at 7:29 PM
feel happy for it:
awareness of indian army and sleepers cell (with no nonsense approach and no pro sympathetic tone on terrorism) was nicely done despite all the drawback and certainly murgadoss is one of the best indian director we have
feel in many ways its better than ghajini as its more original though both of his movies being bilingual sucess which again is another rare achievement
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June 27, 2014 at 6:20 AM
NY Times:
Lost to the Grim Realities of India
‘Siddharth’ Follows a Father’s Search for His Son NYT Critics’ Pick
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
JUNE 26, 2014
Mahendra Saini (Rajesh Tailang), the meek, sad-eyed protagonist of Richie Mehta’s touching film “Siddharth,” is a resident of New Delhi, with a wife, a son approaching puberty and a younger daughter. He ekes out a living on the streets fixing zippers, touting his service through a bullhorn, but business has been bad. In the film’s opening moments, he says goodbye to his son, Siddharth, who is leaving on a bus to work in a factory in distant Ludhiana. The boy’s employer, Om Prakash (Amitabh Srivasta), is a distant cousin of Mahendra’s brother-in-law, Ranjit (Anurag Arora). Both are hardened in ways that Mahendra is not.
Siddharth is scheduled to return home for a holiday after a month away, but when Mahendra meets the bus, he is not on it. Mahendra contacts Om Prakash, who angrily complains that Siddharth ran away two weeks earlier. He would never do that, Mahendra insists. Several days pass, and Mahendra, increasingly worried, consults a traffic cop, who directs him to the police station where Roshni (Geeta Agrawal Sharma), the brusque official in charge of missing persons, scolds him for violating child labor laws. Had he sent Siddharth to school, his education would have been paid for by the government, she says, and scoffs, “You people never learn.”
Mahendra mumbles helplessly: “Business was slow. We needed the money.” He doesn’t have a single photo of his son; he can only guess that his age is 12 or 13; and he can barely operate a cellphone.
Borrowing money from friends, Mehendra sets out to find his son, first making the 200-mile trip to Ludhiana, where he discovers from the boy’s roommate that Siddharth left behind his possessions. It is a sign that he might have been abducted, a too-common fate in India, where thousands of children are kidnapped and dispatched to the streets to beg. The roommate offers one other possibility. Siddharth may have ended up in Dongri, a place some people have heard of, although no one seems to know where it is. In Mahendra’s mind, it becomes a mythic destination: the end of the rainbow, the place where dreams come true.
On one level, “Siddharth” is a cleareyed neorealist film in the tradition of Satyajit Ray. It gazes unblinkingly at the extremely bare living conditions of Mehendra and his family. Its portrayal of impoverished, careworn people barking at one another and protecting their territory in a daily struggle is bracingly hardheaded.
The only sign that the movie has a bleeding heart is a too-pretty score by Andrew Lockington that is glaringly out of step with the film’s vision of urban poverty. As Mahendra’s quest widens, eventually leading him to Mumbai, he begins to lose his grip. At one point, he is so desperate that he begins collaring street boys whom he mistakes for Siddharth. The trip becomes a bitter learning experience for a man who, although only in his 30s, has retained many of the qualities of a child.
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June 27, 2014 at 7:27 AM
What a heart wrenching story which is still relevant in India where so many kids go missing and parents search for them.
Thanks satyam for posting this.
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June 27, 2014 at 12:36 PM
Nahta has multiple tweets on the film, a couple:
Komal Nahta @KomalNahta · 6h
EkVillain biggest opening for Ekta Kapoor, Mohit Suri.Total busines of SidharthMalhotra’s SOTY will perhaps be first week biz of Ek Villain!
Komal Nahta @KomalNahta · 11h
OUTSTANDING opening for Ek Villain all over India!!
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June 27, 2014 at 12:37 PM
from his review:
“On the whole, Ek Villain is a super-hit, a blockbuster. It will score in the multiplexes and the single-screen cinemas, in ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ class centres, and will be loved by the masses and the classes alike. It has tremendous repeat value – yes, tremendous repeat value despite being a suspense thriller.”
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June 27, 2014 at 2:33 PM
Ek Villian collected 14.5 lac on Day 1 in Kanpur, Humshakals had done 7 lacs. We are looking a huge Day 1 here considering a 2200 screen count. 15 crores + is on the cards for sure
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June 27, 2014 at 2:51 PM
He has been prone to become orgasmic whilst describing the prospects of his fav fancies.
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June 27, 2014 at 5:42 PM
Bumper opening indeed with newcomers…but superhit album and people did liked Sid and Shraddha in the videos.
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June 27, 2014 at 8:24 PM
**Mini spoiler ahead**
Even though I’m not as big of an Amitabh Bachchan fan as a lot of people here, even I cringed and was disgusted at the scene in which Sid Malhotra walks to a door into a room where some people are watching Shahenshah. Then Sid (attempts) to act like Bachchan in Shahenshah. It was an obvious and terrible attempt to show Sid as “the angry young man”.
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June 27, 2014 at 9:57 PM
how did you like the film? Thought I’d check it out until I heard it was sourced from a Korean film that I remember quite well. Not as sure now.
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June 28, 2014 at 3:16 AM
I know you were interested about this movie for the thriller/revenge aspect and I think you’ll be disappointed by this movie in terms of that. Ideologically and fundamentally I had a lot of issues with this movie. 3 movies come to my mind-Baazigar/Darr and Ghajini. Baazigar/Darr because of the whole justifying the villain’s actions and Ghajini because of the wife being killed and husband taking revenge aspect. The justification given for Ritesh’s actions were weak-just because he is a “middle class man” in India, he needs to beat/kill women to take his frustrations out and this is supposed to be okay. IMO it does send a bad message. In that sense Baazigar (which is also troubling) and Darr were less troubling for me. I know you had problems with Baazigar, so I can bet you’ll have even more problems with this movie in that sense. I quite liked the love story part in Ek Villain, it was much better than the revenge part.
Performance wise Shraddha is the same bubbly girl we see in every other movie, although I warmed up to her as the movie progressed. Sid Malhotra was good in patches. He’s definitely improved since his dumb SOTY Karan Johar days and he had a good presence/look. The only problem was when he said words! Ritesh was good, but he didn’t steal the movie like I thought he would. KRK was damn hilarious as the wife beater/douche bag. His character was terrible but just seeing KRK on screen was amusing. The songs/BGM as we all know are excellent. Action was okay and production values-I don’t know how this cost 40 crores to make, it doesn’t look anymore expensive or better than a Jannat/A2/other Mahesh Bhatt/Ekta Kapoor movies.
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June 28, 2014 at 3:18 AM
I’m actually thinking about this movie more than I would like to and expected to because of how they justified Ritesh and whatnot. I might have to watch it again.
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June 28, 2014 at 3:25 AM
repeat audience. Good for the movie.
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June 28, 2014 at 8:28 AM
thanks.. this was a great read.. I was more interested in the romance here. The larger problem with the ‘remake’ bit is that you either need stars you’re interested in to watch it again when you know the entire story or it’s the kind of subject where it matters less because it’s not a thriller. If I hadn’t seen the Korean original I might still have checked it out. And even now I wouldn’t mind it for the romance bits. But that’s not the entire thing!
On another note didn’t have a problem with Darr. Had some with Baazigar. The film was entertaining but to have that kind of cold-blooded murder and to the justify it using the figure of the mother was a bit sickening. Of course the audience went along with it which is the problem! In the 70s you always had the mother at the center of things. She would suffer, undergo numerous humiliations, finally when the son grew up and became what he did because of this experience he would either direct his anger at a social or political construct that enabled the mother to suffer in this way or in the lesser film he would simply go after the ‘villain’. Sometimes he would even fall in love with the villain’s daughter. Even if he didn’t he would never go after anyone but the villain. He would even protect the daughter on occasion and shame the villain. In this entire set of possibilities the Baazigar one never existed.
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June 28, 2014 at 8:46 PM
Your second paragraph is very interesting and I agree about the remake part. I had seen both bengali versions of Heropanti and Main Tera Hero before the two came out and since their stories were weak, I found myself fast forwarding through both.
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June 27, 2014 at 9:29 PM
Can’t get enough of WWII movies.
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June 28, 2014 at 12:30 AM
My review:
This film is plain silly. Whats worsebis that it takes itself too seriously and takes too long to come to the point. I prefer the original because it came straight to the point and was far more engaging.
Quite frankly, I dont remember watching a more immoral film than this one since Baazigar (that was shocking). By providing a backstory to Ritesh and justifying his actions and killings, the director is treading on dangerous ground. The way the film is handled, some immature sons of bitches may easily be influenced into taking more disastrous steps against women. And why? To release the frustration of a middle class man, as one of the characters say in the film.
Mohit Suri is here to make money by making unoriginal films with no imagination of his own except providing hackneyed, done to death love angles. He aint a bad filmmaker. What’s needed is some originality and more responsibility!
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June 28, 2014 at 12:51 AM
If this film is as good as Baazigar, I wont have a problem. But why it is always women who are at the receiving end of all violence of frustrated males in these gory thrillers? And why to justify it as you said? This will send a wrong message to the wrong people.
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June 28, 2014 at 1:45 AM
Strictly from POV of narrative, this isnt half as engaging as Baazigar
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June 28, 2014 at 8:37 AM
Rangan mauls the film:
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June 28, 2014 at 10:00 AM
Ha ha….I agree with the review.. however I kind of liked the Shehanshah sequence….was done nicely !!
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June 29, 2014 at 3:58 PM
Rangan is in superb humorous form here.
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June 29, 2014 at 10:03 PM
I remember watching Baazigar all those years back and thinking similarly– that a killer’s actions are somehow being justified.But there are too many films that are plain irresponsible and frankly immoral , sending out wrong messages to weak minds.
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June 28, 2014 at 1:04 AM
saw the movie, pretty intense and mindless violence, the songs and the BGM is awesome, will see a big drop Monday onwards !!
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June 28, 2014 at 5:56 AM
Why drop on monday? if whatever you said sound awesome.
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June 28, 2014 at 10:03 AM
the songs are too good, but at the hall I saw a lot of frustrated faces, they came expecting it to be Ashiqi- 2 and were disappointed to see so much violence.
PS -I went for the 8 pm show, it was full and as we were coming out the line for the next show was pretty big.
My friend who hated the movie remarked- “Mujhe Inn line mein khade hue logon par taras aa raha hai” !!
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June 28, 2014 at 3:46 AM
Satyam
Can you please dig out the World Cup Soccer and post it up top ?
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June 28, 2014 at 8:29 AM
it’s up there now..
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June 28, 2014 at 12:08 PM
Thanks
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June 28, 2014 at 9:15 AM
Imo Ek Villain should get 14-17 cr(wh) ore first day, close to 50 by the weekend & depending on how it’s liked (haven’t seen it) do about 75 -95… Nothing ‘humongous’ or ‘massive’ (as taran /Komal are shouting out!) but good for this star cast/project
Have only seen a promo or two of 1 villain
Somehow I don’t like this sound too much (nor did I like ashiqui 2 music)—
Even this girl shardha doesn’t seem interesting imo..
The ONLY worthwhile thing in Ek VIllain seems the rise of a new lead star —
Sid Malhotra (have said so since SOTY)…
Like his presence, looks and poise–all the best to him
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June 28, 2014 at 10:22 PM
The reason why this is massive is because of the screen count. The screen count is a mere 2200. 50 crores on that screen count means it is operating at 80 percent levels which is unheard of these days. Jai ho did the same numbers in 4000 screens. That was an underperformance but you get the drift right? I have a feeling this will click in single screens too. If this is accepted and we will know on Monday this might even touch 150 crores. The second day is around 15 crores which means it is rock steady on Saturday. Expect a 18 crore Sunday which means close to 50 crores which is phenomenal for that screen count.
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June 29, 2014 at 6:06 PM
Ha U r again getting carried away to 150– just like with ‘holiday’ wherein it’s settling down at 110-120 (as I had predicted)…
Look, I know all this talk of ‘screen counts’ & ‘trending’– are good on paper–there’s already some ‘history’ to this..lol there are multiple other factors that kick in..
Also do u think with double the screen count–the percentage occupany will remain 80 percent or the producers will have the guts to release in double screens with this star cast ?
So it’s not that simplistic..
Don’t wish to revisit it again…the regulars are aware..
..it’s not an accident that many here have stopped making any predictions now 🙂
Anyhow-Plz read above–I have said it will do 50 over the weekend –And may skirt 100 cr(wh)ores …
Haven’t seen the film but theoretically 150 is also possible (given the strong music etc) but it’s v difficult
It will need the equivalent of (my original challenge to dhoom3) of dhoom3 making 350 or even 400 which was possible after that start (before the slump!)
Now ‘trending’ has been stripped to a dirty word on this v blog in full public glare 🙂
Necessitating unfair moderation etc
Anyhow, have to agree with Satyam on the misuse of words like ‘massive’ & ‘humongous’–can be used for numbers produced by flicks like d3/krish 3/CE..
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June 29, 2014 at 8:32 PM
Since it is Raman period, 150 is a possibility but we will know on Monday. On holiday I said 150 and later said 120 after day 1 as day 1 was below par. I do agree with satyam on usage of superlatives too but this one deserves the usage more than the rest.
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June 29, 2014 at 8:36 PM
I meant ramzan
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June 30, 2014 at 9:16 AM
“Ha U r again getting carried away to 150– just like with ‘holiday’ wherein it’s settling down at 110-120 (as I had predicted)…”
Lol its funny each time Krish like a good boy accepts these zingers from Apex.
” Don’t wish to revisit it again…the regulars are aware..
..it’s not an accident that many here have stopped making any predictions now 🙂 ”
Whatever may be the reasons but yes this fact cannot be repudiated…!!
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June 30, 2014 at 9:27 AM
Leaving aside the issue of how correct or incorrect Apex is in these matters or others (and I’m afraid he’s rather less right then he would like to think.. then again he is perhaps more right here than in his unfortunate pronouncements on how the game of soccer is played) it’s fortunate for Krrish that he doesn’t belong to that primitive school of thought where being wrong sometimes or often in these matters causes deep psychological anguish or at least suggests one has been less of a man or something!
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June 30, 2014 at 9:58 AM
Satyam
Contributors come from different countries with different background (education etc), hence all else being equal, very diverse sets of thoughts are expected.
Some fun is productive, but then a blog like this wants people to share their thoughts. Personal attacks therefore are in the long run very counter productive.
Disagreement can be expressed in civil tones.
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June 30, 2014 at 4:02 PM
It’s better to express some caution with your comments and not universalize things this much, specially on such sensitive issues. I have edited the earlier comment. It’s more trouble than its worth. I see some of where you’re coming from but precisely because these issues are serious one must never run the risk of tarnishing an entire group or what have you. Even if you did’t intend to do this your language might have been more careful.
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June 30, 2014 at 5:35 PM
Haha lemme give ‘krish’ a krish ‘armband’ …
As a prize ..
Thanx ms. Dhoni for the info about the song.
I haven’t seen ashiqui2 but have never liked those songs somehow.
Same with most of 1 villain songs…
I don’t care bout the background of the infamous singer..
But Teri galliyan is a lovely composition according to my musical filters aka ears…
Also like the dreamy vibe & also the slow ‘pacing’ it’s been recorded in…
Tu meri neendo me sota hai
Tu mere ashqo mein rota hai
Sargoshi si hai khayalon mein
Tu na ho, phir bhi tu hota hai
Hai sila.. tu mere dard ka
Mere dil ki duaayein hain..
Teri galiyan… galliyan teri, galliyan..
AISHA !!
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June 28, 2014 at 9:17 AM
A ‘legendary’ gif clip of the número unos (imo) of Bollywood
The icy hug
http://www.pinkvilla.com/entertainmenttags/katrina-kaif/katrina-kaif-and-deepika-padukones-icy-hug
Ps: for a change katrina shows expressions (if not on celluloid)- oh dearie 🙂
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June 28, 2014 at 9:41 AM
In the gif clip, kitkat doesn’t seem happy with DPads kissing ettiquitte…
Wot say guyz–got an idea…
‘blue is the warmest color’ remake starring these two? (With no censorship etc!) -sounds good ?
Anyhow Satyam–I had a post somewhere on the
‘Art of running onscreen-Bollywood’ -can u find it -I can’t
Another addition to my exclusive club (although this is only a few seconds so not the best example)
Sid Malhotra
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June 28, 2014 at 8:46 PM
Err lazy to check the music properly -skimmed thru- not a bad album…
Anyhow it will be unfair not to mention this track that I zoned into.
Should be the best one of this album
Yahin doobe din mere
Yahin hote hain savere
Yaheen marna aur jeena
Yaheen mandir aur madeena..
& then the HIT words acting as the ENGINE for the whole album….
Teri galiyan… galliyan teri, galliyan..
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June 30, 2014 at 9:07 AM
This is again Ankit Tiwari….the guy who was recently in news for rape charges and all the wrong reasons.
He is turning to be a great music composer/singer. After the initial euphoria died down on the brilliant title track Tum hi ho sung by Arijit Singh, I was hooked on to Sun Raha from Ashiqui 2 composed and sung by Ankit , which left a longer lasting impression and continues to be my favorite.
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June 28, 2014 at 11:36 AM
5 Stages of Sajid Khan Film – Enough is Enough!
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June 28, 2014 at 12:50 PM
A good example to illustrate why humor, especially intelligent humor is so hard.
When the guy claims, that his grandfather’s funeral (burning his grandfather) was funny, this bit ceases to be funny.
When he says that the holocaust (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust) was funny, we know this guy is not just pathetic, but is a certifiable creep. Which sane person says such filth about the holocaust?
[edited]
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June 29, 2014 at 7:11 AM
I know what you mean. He’s attacked, the three Khans (no, no not those, only one from them) – Sajid, Farah, and SRK.
Salman and Amir have been quick to associate with this Modi fellow.
But I think he wanted to be sarcastic when he says he laughed more at his grandfather’s funeral or the holocaust – meaning there was nothing funny there, and that the film produces grim feelings as at these occasions even more.
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June 28, 2014 at 12:58 PM
Book this guy for hate crime. Find the link between him and NaMo.
In Europe he WILL be served for his statement on holocaust.
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June 29, 2014 at 10:53 AM
Did you forget to take your meds today?? talk about overreacting to an unfunny digital short .. and you seem to imply that if the person is Gujarati, then he must be anti-muslim, IMO that attitude is just as sickening as anything mentioned in the video.
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June 29, 2014 at 5:26 PM
Do you really need to be told in how many ways this bit is sickening ? Really ?
This guy says he laughed at the Holocaust. After hearing that I am shocked that you still need anything more that will summon the proper perspective from within you ?
But say if he had not said that he found lighting up his grandfather funny, say he had not disparaged the memories of million of Jews that died of genocide, say none of that happened, do you not find the stance too aggressive ?
Given the fact that the spirit of countless of those that died in the race riots of Gujarat under the watch of NaMo are still looking for justice, some sensitivity is required. The last thing one can accept is a Gujarati speaking dude praying to his God to kill a minority’s career.
If you cannot show any sensitivity to ALL of the above. if you have to instead attack me then dude there is nothing I can say that make you see how wrong this comedy bit it.
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June 30, 2014 at 10:34 AM
I am really surprised that Satyam has let this comment of Bandra stand, with one sweep he has managed to implicate all Gujrati Hindus, has a Namo Phobia….and is pretty much stating that Guajaratis should not criticize any Muslims…..
He is a like a slow poison and would not be surprised if he had ties with ISI.
this guy should be booked for hate speech, anywhere else he would have been BANNED from the blog !!
P.S.- OLD Gold shows her/ his true colors as well here !!
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June 30, 2014 at 4:02 PM
hadn’t read it earlier.
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July 2, 2014 at 7:35 PM
satyam: where are both of my comment
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July 2, 2014 at 7:38 PM
its not first time kindly be clear …scared of counter view
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July 2, 2014 at 9:38 PM
this is not a thread for politics nor is any other political thread active on the blog at the moment. Once in a while one can put up a comment or two but knowing your history you’re more likely to put up 10 or 15!
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July 2, 2014 at 10:05 PM
good now you restored it and btw who initiated political discussion in first place, you want to have it both way i guess
actually you have more the history of using political examples, i do it on political thread but if you say or something don’t be scared of counterview
btw i have access to dashboard and can see how comment goes to trash and can restore it but haven’t used it to delete or restore comment ever and that says everything
be honest for change
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July 2, 2014 at 10:28 PM
I deleted two comments earlier and didn’t restore them.
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June 28, 2014 at 1:06 PM
Ek Villian Records Excellent First Day Figures
Saturday 28 June 2014 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villian had an excellent first day as it recorded collections of 16-16.50 crore nett on day one. The all India collections were similar to Jai Ho with multiplexes being better and single screens less. The film is the first real opener of the year as Jai Ho was a wider release and although collections were good they could should have been better for its release.
The collections were fantastic all over with some circuits recording the highest collections for the year. Delhi/UP, East Punjab (despite competition from Punjabi film Punjab 1984) and Mysore were all better than Jai Ho and tops for the year. West Bengal may also make this list.
The opening day ensures its success and its remains to be seen how big of a lifetime number it finally puts up. The first day was always expected to be huge but it has actually come out a couple of crore more than the huge expectations which is rare.
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June 28, 2014 at 1:07 PM
actually given the greater print count and the star in question the Jai Ho opening was not “good” but rather poor. How mildly and euphemistically BOI have referred to it!
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June 28, 2014 at 1:08 PM
taran adarsh @taran_adarsh · 10h
#EkVillain Fri ₹ 16.72 cr nett [2539 screens]. India biz. Second highest opener of 2014. In terms of screen average, it’s HIGHEST. AWESOME!
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June 28, 2014 at 1:08 PM
and here’s some more spin:
taran adarsh @taran_adarsh · 9h
#HF2 14 cr, #GrandMasti 12.51 cr, #Humshakals 12.5 cr, #EkVillain 16.72 cr. Riteish Deshmukh consistent with double digit openings. SUPER!
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June 29, 2014 at 1:16 AM
lol Taran…he forgot to include the bumper opening of Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya??
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June 28, 2014 at 8:44 PM
Ek Villian Set For A Huge Saturday
Saturday 28 June 2014 23.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villian is looking at another big day as it Saturday collections should come in the 15 crore nett range. It is a drop from Friday of about 10% but that was inevitable due to the excellent collections on day one..
Ther drop at some single screens is a bit more than normal but that is probably as collections were high for this type of film on its first day. The multiplexes look set for a strong run as overall they were pretty much at the same levels as Friday with some places seeing growth and others dipping a bit.
The Saturday business like the Friday business will be only second to Jai Ho this year. Ek Villian is looking at 50 crore nett or near 50 crore nett weekend. .
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June 28, 2014 at 10:25 PM
http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Oggarane-Kannada/291168
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June 29, 2014 at 4:40 AM
Ek Villian Continues Fantastic Run On Saturday
Sunday 29 June 2014 13.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villian had another excellent day as it collected around 15.50 crore nett on day two as per early estimates taking its total to around 32 crore nett over two days. The film is heading for a 50 crore nett weekend.
The film held up superbly at multiplexes with some even showing growth from their lofty levels on Friday. The business in North was the same as Friday while Mumbai circuit dropped a little as collections in Gujarat saw a 20% drop.
There was a drop in most circuits but with collections being at such high levels on day one this was bound to happen as films that open strong on Friday morning never repeat the same thing on Saturday morning and so it is all about catch up with the latter shows on Saturday.
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June 29, 2014 at 4:41 PM
My thoughts on Nebraska:
So much of unsaid words, gestures, and the most trivial of everyday conversations speak volumes about every character, etched to perfection, and the world around us in this instant classic. Nebraska is one of the rare gems that have resurrected my faith in modern day cinema and in filmmakers like Alexander Payne. Having just finished watching it, I cant sum up my thoughts into words that can do justice to the film, but in a nutshell – I’d call it the best of last year, trumping Her, which was my favourite from 2013. It narrates the story of a family, which appears disconnected at first, with grumpy characters — an old man who just doesn’t care to speak up or pay attention to what goes around him, and a wife whose nagging just doesn’t seem to end. However, when under danger from mean relatives and neighbours who wanna take advantage, the family stays united. It’s the charming details and the moments that take your breath away. Bruce Dern’s Woody is so flesh n blood and such marvellously played by the thespian, it’s hard imagining you aren’t going along this journey with him.
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June 29, 2014 at 6:09 PM
Good review
Alexander Payne is quite a perceptive maker
He was gr8 in sideways & specially effective in ‘descendants’ wherein he extracted clooneys career best ..
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June 29, 2014 at 4:54 PM
Great news here!
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/badminton/Saina-Nehwal-wins-Australian-Open-Super-Series-title/articleshow/37445502.cms
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June 29, 2014 at 10:50 PM
Ek Villain – 50 Cr weekend is very good, should go past 100Cr easily; don’t see any issues at all(unlike some of them suggesting here).
Mohit Suri directing 9 films by the age of 33 is remarkable, I see potential in him to make a great film someday when he stopped relying on Korean films skeleton.
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June 30, 2014 at 2:28 AM
at-least he has reached a stage where he can command 10 cr as his fees as a director…..commendable
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June 29, 2014 at 11:37 PM
I saw Ek Villain today, found it a one time watch. I am really happy that it has found acceptance at this level with a 50 cr weekend.
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June 30, 2014 at 6:23 AM
aran adarsh @taran_adarsh · 3h
#EkVillain Fri 16.72 cr, Sat 16.54 cr, Sun 17.44 cr. Total: ₹ 50.70 cr nett. India biz. MONSTROUS HIT!
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June 30, 2014 at 6:51 AM
Girish Johar @girishjohar · 1h
#Humshakals collects 3.6crs aprox in its 2nd wknd…. Cnboc 52.4crs aprox
Worst fall i ever heard in a long long time.
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June 30, 2014 at 6:51 AM
at this pace it will wrap at 56 cr.
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June 30, 2014 at 6:57 AM
i think himmatwala did 47 cr. 9 cr progress by sajid in one year.
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June 30, 2014 at 6:58 AM
yes it’s a total flop. Weekend was still ok but clearly there’s been nothing since.
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June 30, 2014 at 7:08 AM
i think weekend was good . the way BOI was commenting they would have given it hit at 80 also. with average trending it should have made it third much. but this is a colossal fall.
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June 30, 2014 at 7:17 AM
taran adarsh @taran_adarsh · 2h
#Holiday [Week 4] Fri 30 lacs, Sat 44 lacs, Sun 72 lacs. Grand total: ₹ 111.48 cr nett. India biz. HIT.
holiday fell big too but it is already highest grosser.
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June 30, 2014 at 8:26 AM
more importantly it was very stable before this even if at the lower end..
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June 30, 2014 at 9:53 AM
Thats a massive drop…It will struggle to even reach 55 now when it was looking to be getting to 70+ even after Tuesday.
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June 30, 2014 at 7:02 AM
Girish Johar @girishjohar · 2h
Sajid Nadiadwala has roped in writer-director duo Sajid-Farhad for Akshay- Abhishek- Riteish starrer #Housefull3
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June 30, 2014 at 4:05 PM
I have deleted a number of political comments. Rocky’s response here followed by my own to him and to Bandra NRI will be the last word on this particular topic.
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July 1, 2014 at 2:53 AM
#EkVillain passes ‘Monday test’ with flying colors. Wknd 50.70 cr, Mon 8.10 cr. Total: ₹ 58.8 cr nett. India biz. MONSTROUS HIT!
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July 1, 2014 at 3:09 AM
Good. It did not drop as many have wished and many have predicted.
Maybe the magic of melodious, haunting music.
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July 1, 2014 at 3:34 AM
all big hyped movies do well on monday, real test is on tuesday imo. there is significant drop in bms bookings on tuesday. Anything less than 15% fall will be good.
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July 1, 2014 at 3:50 AM
It used to be monday test. Now it seems to be tuesday test.
If this film does well, the credit goes to only music. Other things are secondary.
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July 1, 2014 at 7:55 AM
It’s funny how parameters keep changing. Before release I thought this movie would do max of 50 crore. It’s already over it so as far as I’m concerned the movie is a success. Don’t matter to me if it collects that 50 crore in 50 weeks, 5 weeks, 5 days or in the first show itself.
How many really thought that this movie would do about 70 crores in week 1?
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July 1, 2014 at 8:06 AM
I’m not very surprised actually.. there’s a reason why some of us keep saying most of the big movies underperform. These days any movie that gets that minimal initial is on course for 100 crores. Just this year we’ve seen this for 2 States. This could do more than that depending on how it trends later on. This is precisely why it’s absurd to celebrate movies with big stars for doing 100 or more than this. Somehow the biggest stars only have to live up to the same standard that Arjun Kapoor or Siddharth Malhotra seem to! I would say it’s absurd except that it’s not really so. It’s simple dishonesty but there are enough people willing to buy this to advance their own agendas and/or their favorite stars.
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July 1, 2014 at 8:53 AM
“Somehow the biggest stars only have to live up to the same standard that Arjun Kapoor or Siddharth Malhotra seem to!”
LOL! Or are we saying that Arjun and Siddharth are moving on a par with Salman and Akshay? Hmmm…
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July 1, 2014 at 8:39 AM
I feel there is a shift in whole dynamics which is mostly occurring due to changing demography and younger audience now starting to zero on and root for their favorites. Whatever be the merits of the films , I simply never thought an Arjun Kapoor could do a 100cr and Siddhartha Malhotra a raging 50 cr in a weekend!!
Just recently better movies with similar aged actors were at the 40-50 cr benchmark in best case scenario.
Would be interesting to see how Humpty Sharma with Varun , Kill Dill with Ranvir and Bombay Velvet with Ranbir is received.
Its bad news for Salman and the older crowd but also gives them an impetus to do shift gears and bring more depth and substance to not only their performance but to the proceedings. Among the big trio Sallu has his Prem stuff albeit releasing after a good 1.5 years to back him up. Aamir is intelligent enough and has been changing gears for a while now and SRK too has Raees and Fan which seem more story based on paper….
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July 1, 2014 at 8:43 AM
Alternately one can agree with Satyam where he rightly says most of the big movies are underperforming as none reaching their true potential.
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July 1, 2014 at 8:53 AM
It is heartening to see new ones are accepted and this will make movies more democratic. Of course, the well established will try every trick to maintain their positions but it will be diminishing returns after a while. Age is catching up with all of them. A simple looking lass like Shraddha making her presence felt is a good sign.
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July 1, 2014 at 9:44 AM
The 3 khans have nothing to worry about for at least another 5 years.
Salman has enough fan following and has Barjatya film coming up. Aamir will do another hirani and won’t have issue getting some other big films, SRK has HNY coming up, Fan, Raees, Rohit Shetty next. I think going forward, these 3 khans and Hrithik movies has to do minimum of 150 crore.
Real happy to see newcomers like Varun, Sidhhart, Arjun, etc finding success and the success of these new comers means trouble for those who’s been in industry for more than 10 years and have done really nothing. No producers have lot more choices to chose from.
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July 1, 2014 at 9:47 AM
Now*
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July 1, 2014 at 10:00 AM
I think you have a point here. the younger 15-30 demographic is the most influential one in multiplexes. The next best is the somewhat older ‘family’ crowd. But in terms of showing up right away for a movie or watching it more than once the former cannot really be beaten. Of course you sometimes have an overlap between the two in which case the film can really put up big numbers but on most average days, comparing like for like, a film that attracts that younger demographic opens bigger. Conversely by the same token it doesn’t trend as well because that same younger demographic is much more likely to be distracted by newer releases (specially when most are geared around this group anyway) or something else whereas the family audience that might not truly show up for a film without good enough WOM will stand with it in the long run. Now occasionally you will see a film like YJHD where there is enough critical support in both groups and there are huge numbers. On the other hand the average Salman film or something comparable might be big enough (because of the star or the package) to attract ‘everyone’ for a short period of time but here most people in those two demographics will end up either not caring for the film or disliking it outright. These are ‘circuses’ that always attract the largest audience initially and this is the reason why a number of filmmakers from Salman’s directors to Farah Khan do as much as they can to squeeze in as many item numbers as possible, stars as possible, all sorts of other frills (less so with Salman himself because he’s red hot though much like the mass Telugu/Tamil star every film of his comes equipped with a certain bag of tricks and is not spontaneous even in the mildest sense.. in other words it’s a not a ‘narrative’ like Ghajini or something.. it’s simply a collection of ‘moments’ from item numbers to dialog meant to induce claps or whistles or whatever) to maximize the initial. In other words if the star alone could get it done you wouldn’t need to go crazy with this other stuff. But other than Salman at the moment and obviously Aamir there is no star at the moment, none whatsoever, who can pull in the audience without those frills attached. In some ways the Houseful logic though abysmal in terms of this franchise is in refined fashion the logic of the entire industry. Very few stars escape this and no very major star can typically. Why? Because this whole craziness of comparing stars only in terms of absolute grosses and not looking at other factors and so forth (though a distributor would never do this the narrative that is advanced in the media/trade matters) puts a kind of pressure on stars that is not the obvious box office one. In other words if SRK does 5 films in a row that are somewhat more meaningful but they gross about 140 crores each off 60-70 crores initials these would be great results. But people would then say that Salman or Hrithik or whoever got a 100 crore initial or a 200 crore or whatever even though the genres wouldn’t have been comparable. So SRK then decided to go for HNY and put on the biggest show possible. Now Aamir is in the rare position where he’s built up enough prestige over time that he can do Talaash or D3 or Hirani and just get the biggest initials possible each time. Without putting on a circus. Once upon a time (even when SRK was at his peak) the rule was that if you the biggest star or the most iconic one you got some of the best commercial films at hand and those were enough to get you the biggest initials. Today that is no longer the case. And it’s a self-serving logic. If you made somewhat more ‘sincere’ films like Ghajini or something you’d get bigger initials another way. But since it’s easier to do so by just running an ad campaign and no one penalizes you on trending grounds you do for the low hanging fruit.
All of this is connected to another point. Inasmuch as Bollywood is increasingly about a certain Hollywoodization in some very structural ways the star matters less and less. Obviously there are still bigger stars and smaller ones and certain kinds of projects are designed with the former in mind. But the ‘logic’ of the two is often the same. In other words if you make a nothing film and take Salman you feel you’ll gets certain audience. You can keep costs lower on average with him. On the other hand if you take SRK or Hrithik and still have to put on a super-production (krrish, Bang Bang, Mohenjadaro, HNY, Ra One..) the opportunity costs here are much greater. And even those films though they promise the biggest initials hardly ever trend even decently. You can do much better with YJHD at a fraction of the cost.
People often argue that things are different in Hollywood. The real difference here is that they know how to tap the right demographics with the right films. They don’t just depend on summer blockbusters. Even here you routinely see teen movies and so forth beating films with bigger stars. Because if a film is simply going to be about ‘consumption’ and ‘entertainment’ (understood in the ‘stupidest’ way) you can prosper quite a bit with ‘dumb’ films. For anything else something more meaningful needs to be made. Aamir has by and large stuck to the latter model since Lagaan (even some years before this to a great extent). Salman is entirely about the former one (he never pretended to be otherwise at any stage of his career.. he’s the one star who cannot be blamed in this sense.. if you are this kind of star-actor you cannot do anything else). Everyone else falls in between. But in this sort of chaotic Hollywood-like paradigm where attention spans are short whether it’s YJHD or Agneepath or 2 States or Ek Villain or what have you people move on after the initial. The big star in some of these cases does attract people to the theaters all else being equal but most of the time not because the audience thinks he will offer something special but that his films will just be ‘fun’. No one goes to Bang Bang expecting anything other than a joy ride. If you’re going to have this particular sort of joy ride Hrithik and Katrina might be better than anyone else. when (and if) such a film works no one comes out of the theater feeling impressed by the stars or the film! They see Hrithik’s body, they see Katrina’s body, they see a few moves, they see an exotic beach somewhere, and they’re happy. The audience is as debased as everything else! Once again with this paradigm in effect you need the star who can really single himself out. Once more with Aamir one might feel he’s doing something different or at least his commercial stuff is more meaningful. With Salman he has so far singled himself out by producing such initials at a constant rate. So while everyone can profit in those same genres no one has been able to match his frequency in this period. So there are these two models with Aamir’s obviously being the more viable long-term one.
And here I should also add that in a way this whole game about who’s the top star based on the last three releases or who did 100 crores how many times or who opened a film to 12 crores on opening day versus 14 crores etc etc.. all of this stuff, leaving aside the dishonesty and leaving aside all the agendas, is simply beside the point most of the time. It is if anything a desperate attempt to impose the older star order on a much more diffuse system. Again like Hollywood where it’s hard to tell at any given point who the topmost star is. You can probably arrive at a list for a top bracket though within it it’s not easy to say who’s over or below someone else. But beyond this the ‘facts’ in this sense just don’t matter the way they once did. Because again and in the absence of that very dominant star (either in the box office sense.. this is not just about being in a top bracket but being better than every peer in a very obvious sense… or in the De Niro one.. you don’t have the biggest box office numbers, not even close but you have incredible prestige as an actor.. say Stallone v De Niro..) the actual numbers don’t matter very much beyond issues of basic viability. So yes on most days a producer will be willing to invest 100 crores on certain kinds of stars as opposed to others but this ‘fact’, obviously correlated to the initial the star in question can generate or not, is not a wider cultural one in the sense that it once might have been or put differently such a star is still part of a group and hence ‘replaceable’. So it’s not about saying whether Hrithik is doing better than Abhishek. He manifestly is in the box office sense. The question is whether he’s doing something Salman or SRK or whoever cannot and is he doing so at a lower opportunity cost? If not he is simply one of the ‘options’. The other question is whether he can generate his capital as a star to do better with somewhat more meaningful or risky films a la Aamir? If not then he cannot carve out something singular even here. Which is why the moment a new star arrives with a big enough hit (say Ranbir Kapoor) he too becomes one of the options. The older star holds on to his box office position but he’s now part of a great crowd which by definition means the achievement becomes less special. It’s one thing to do 150 crores if you’re the only one getting there and quite another if 6 other people are doing it as well and 10 others are always in position to do so! And the reason this is important is that this older star will then always face pressure to keep jacking up the numbers which in turn will keep pushing him in the direction of the ‘circus’ and consequently the great initial followed by a bust. This logic will essentially hold. Doing it the Aamir way is infinitely harder. Because even at the best of times it’s very difficult to do meaningful films that work in a very significant way.
It is precisely in such a chaotic system that the shelf life of a film matters. people remember RDB or Lagaan or DCH or TZP or whatever. No one remembers CE beyond a point. Because it’s completely disposable cinema. The same goes for all the other stars. Can anyone tell one Salman film from another barring Dabanng? They’re all the same more or less. What is Hrithik doing today with Bang Bang? The same stuff that he established in his first film. I look good, I work out every day, I have some great moves etc etc. Now there’s Mohenjadaro which will be JA all over again in a different period setting. What’s SRK been doing for a number of years? CDI was one exception. Otherwise from Farah Khan to Don one circus after the other (for different reasons). One doesn’t even need to get into Akshay Kumar. Ranbir has a nice balance as of now. But the question is whether he can hold onto this over the long run. Because at some point stars get tempted. They’re happy to do more of YJHD because it gets them the numbers. Or if one wants to be more charitable the market pressures are great on them to repeat those moments. Which is why they have to actually sacrifice some of that success early on to avoid that trap. However the Abhishek example post Guru (Yuva through Guru) shows up that this balance is hard to keep striking and whether it’s bad luck or whatever if you don’t maximize the box office (repeats of BnB or BM or Sarkar or the Dus sort of moment or what have you) you might be in a position where different doesn’t work and you can’t get back to the BnB moment. Then you need serious reinvention at some point. So I do understand why stars make many of these choices. But the larger point is that a lot of these ratings and so forth are simply pointless in a Hollywoodized system.
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July 1, 2014 at 10:29 AM
There wasn’t much circus in CE yet it made about 225 crore.
why Farah khan + circus + askhay in tees mar khan didn’t give same result as farah khan + circus + shahrukhkhan in MHN and OSO?
You can say things to please yourself but reality is always something else.
Whatever SRK, Salman and Aamir has been doing for over 20 years, it’s been working and will continue to work. Hrithik is up there too with Ranbeer very close behind. Akshay will be continue to be in good position and now you have all these new comers who are doing great.
what’s gone is actors who’s been here for more then 10 years and who has done nothing.
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July 1, 2014 at 10:52 AM
Don’t be so offended by my views..! Specially if you consider them worthless. And since you keep coming here I know I am not just saying this stuff to please myself.!
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July 1, 2014 at 11:26 AM
I’m not offended at all but i do consider them worthless because on one had you want people to believe that a movie which collects over 200 crore just in india is nothing and then on another hand you want us to believe that some crappy bhi movie with crappy colletion which is less then 1/4 of most SRK, salman or Hrithik movies is something to marvel at.
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July 1, 2014 at 11:38 AM
Can’t do anything for those who don’t understand English or whose skills are poor in this sense. You always knew the blog was in English.
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July 1, 2014 at 1:02 PM
Funny, when all fails, resort to pedestrian stuff. Not my fault you put all your eggs in abhis basket. Not sure why you’re getting mad, just put up another long post on how other actors 100 crore or 200 crore is nothing and abhis ¼ of it is something.
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July 2, 2014 at 9:01 AM
I think no one really goes to a movie, except for a “joy ride”. It is not as if movies serve as an educational tool.
I think the point that Z is perhaps trying to make is that given that the focus (most of the time) is consumption, the quality (even if exist) is secondary. Producers rather sell circus because there are buyers. Hence if circus + xyz sells, then they will not stop and wonder if they should instead substitute abc in the place of xyz because abc has more merit .
Two things are clear, one, whether sheer luck or talent, a lot of the younger stars have served the system well, hence producers today have choices.
Two, some stars, even in the right set-up, just have not delivered.
Abhishek does not make big budget circus because his track record does not allow him that luxury, not because he has a choice and by design he refuses to do it. Abhishek does what the market allows him. To his credit he was survived 10+ years and that is enough for me to accept him as a BONAFIDE runner.
Aamir took huge risk because at that time his circus was not selling and for the sake of survival he reinvented himself. To his credit, he managed to create a market segment for himself. But a Lagaan or TZP do not come easy or often and hence he too, in order to stay in the rat race, has to resort to circus like Dhoom 3. PK in its own way will be just another calculated circus.
The biggest star will always be the one who can master big budget circus. This big budget circus is the grease that allows all the parts in the industry to move. The collective survival of the industry depends upon such circus.
The star who makes edgy/off beat movie will win some but lose many. Sadly his quality (even if it exists) will be like the moon on a moonless night (invisible and unseen).
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July 2, 2014 at 10:19 AM
I’d make a few points here..
1)Yes movies are minimally about consumption. And obviously they’re always catering to a market. Even the smallest film is doing this. And clearly this is an art-entertainment form where commerce is always a much greater part of the equation than in most others. But this does not mean that consumption cannot be married to meaningful entertainment. Every age is not the same, the concerns of every age are not the same, this is inevitably reflected in the cinema of any given age. But even in an era where audiences have by and large supported very superficial if not lowbrow entertainment they have nonetheless showed greater support for films that were meaningful or better in this sense. As long as the choice was there. If you just keep making Houseful you can make the case that these sorts of films run and something like Swades doesn’t. But that’s not the correct analogy. The point ought to be that when there is someone like Hirani offering more meaningful entertainment within very commercial genres those films do better than those of everyone else. And even if they don’t have the biggest initials (as in LRM) they trend better than every other hit. In other words the very same audience that is showing up for all these Akshay Kumar comedies or Salman films and so forth is also not giving these films strong WOM. When it’s a Hirani it is doing so. Even at other levels one can see this. OMG trended extremely well as did Kahaani. There are many such examples. These are films that make a significant gross. So it’s not just as if it’s a 20 crore deal or something. This is what Aamir has been about. Delivering the better, more meaningful product within established genres and sometimes moving away from them. And we see this everywhere. Most multiplex movies don’t trend like ZNMD, most masala films don’t trend like Singham. So on and so forth. Therefore the consumption/commerce claim hardly disallows one from making better stuff in any genre or any end of the production scale.
2)It’s not right to say that every star in an ideal world would just opt for the big budget circus. Abhishek precisely when he was strongest went in for riskier stuff. Now some of it was high end prestige cinema but no one would say that D6 was operating at the same production level as HNY! And even if it takes more consolidation for a star to get to that level this still doesn’t explain why other than JBJ (which with the very same team was an obvious choice) he didn’t go in for more obvious choices, specially when after a while it was clear that some of these were failing. Most if not all stars even when they try their hand at the risky immediately do a course correction when one or two films don’t work. Who for example does KHJJS after Raavan? Or even a bit before when your back is already against the wall. So on and so forth. I am not criticizing these choices by the way or not necessarily, just arguing against your point.
It is also about how the star perceives his or her career and the kind of aspirations he or she has. This is something fairly consistent with Abhishek because even pre-Yuva he was doing certain subjects that most stars don’t do even when they’re flopping. They flop in regular films and not doing stuff like Shararat or Bas Itna sa khwab hai or whatever. Now of course he’s doing some very commercial stuff because he’s run out of some of those other options. And it’s not as if he wasn’t mixing it up. But you always got the sense that those commercial choices were ways to enable D6 or something of the sort rather than ends in themselves. For most stars the latter is the real deal whereas the different is from time to time a bonus (when it works). Even now note how Abhishek nonetheless errs more on a certain ‘masala’ side rather than a pure multiplex one. Ironic because otherwise he’s not warmed up to masala. But even with these multistarrers they’re not really multiplex films the way Dostana was. Take someone like Saif. He too has tried a lot of stuff but he’s always stayed within the multiplex zone. Before Humshakals. So stars have their aspirations.
But let’s move on to Aamir. This idea has often been advanced that he needed to reinvent himself. Almost as if one becomes the Aamir of Lagaan and after almost as a matter of desperation! All stars should be so lucky! The fact is that Aamir despite many bad choices early on when he was young was always interested in more meaningful entertainment. He too compromised with films like Raja Hindustani and so forth but he too always stayed within a more rooted orbit as much as possible. Even at the height of the Yashraj moment he was doing RH or Indra Kumar or whatever. he was one of the top stars even then and could easily have gone with the flow but he didn’t. He reduced his volume, became more careful but nonetheless stuck with a certain course. Even after a decade in the industry he was still betting on Ghulam (hardly the biggest film around) rather than a Switzerland romance. Naturally most of these films weren’t big grossers even when they worked. But he still had a good success ratio. However he wasn’t setting the terms of the debate the way SRK was quite obviously and he did need reinvention. But the point here is that you have to believe in it. You can’t just do it cynically. And if he were that cynical he might have followed the existing trends much earlier on.
Secondly who thinks that a 3 hr 40 min film on cricket set in british India with a flop director is one’s best ticket to reinvention?! Now he looks like a genius but who thought this was the best possible move at the time? Even Aamir with his judgment knew it was a risk. Because if he had the same judgment in the 90s he might have been in a better position even then. In any case even if he had to reinvent himself, even if he had greater ambitions it hardly follows that he needed to do Lagaan! And if it’s something no one has tried before so one has a chance to set oneself apart well by definition that’s a huge risk.
But even with this he was also doing DCH, a genre which didn’t exist at the time. Later on he did RDB (again Mehra had no hit behind him), even when he did Yashraj he played an unrepentant terrorist (so within that commercial genre he tweaked things and in case this Yashraj film was far closer to 60s cinema than anything they’d done in the 90s with SRK). I won’t go through the entire list. I know you have said some of these things as well. But I’d just put the focus elsewhere as I’ve already stated. Now it’s true that he went in for D3 and so on. But note that when he did Ghajini he had no way of knowing it would be so huge since no masala in Bombay had done any such thing for decades let alone one with some seriously uncomfortable moments in it. Also note that when he did D3 he also had Talaash before it. The riskiest film (by his standards) that he had done in a long time (DG didn’t have the same expectations) and sure enough it’s his only film other than MP that didn’t trend well. There’s no harm in some insurance! And he’s done this in the past too. Fanaa with RDB for example. So there’s no harm in having some safety. And as for Hirani this combo has become huge after 3I but what actor would ever refuse Hirani on any given day anyway? And it’s not as if Hirani is doing a huge circus. If anything I think one cannot automatically expect a 3I-like performance from the current film.
3) Yes there are market pressures on any star and paradoxically they’re greater when the star is successful. I don’t expect any star to be a saint but there are different trajectories each star follows which cannot only be correlated with the box office. Whether it’s Hrithik or SRK or Akshay or Salman or Abhishek or Saif or Ranbir or any star that has been in a position to truly choose at any point in time the paths are quite different. Some of it is obviously about image and how the market perceives that star’s talents (or lack thereof) and so forth but equally a lot of it is about how the star sees himself. Can anyone honestly say Hrithik could not come up with better things to do than Kites and Bang Bang? Even within those genres. Why was Akshay Kumar avoiding masala for the longest time and sticking to these terrible comedies? What’s with SRK’s Don obsession? Etc etc. On that note SRK too tried meaningful stuff earlier. In fact he’s a guy who came in very much thinking he’d do the mix. But the other stuff once again did not work, just about at any level. The list is an awfully long one. And in the meantime he became hugely iconic doing Yashraj and reduced himself to those parts even if (and by his own admission he never believed in those films or liked them, not even DDLJ!). Nothing odd about this. Most stars follow the box office. But this is not the only possibility. SRK could have shown some more dedication to the different, tried it a bit more. Or turned his energies toward more credible projects. what happened even after CDI? So if you just want to get the biggest grossers that’s fine but that’s not the same as being forced to do that stuff. You can spend enormous amounts on an Ra One but you can’t enable a few sensible films?!
4) yes all else being equal the biggest stars usually get the biggest production budgets but once again in a Hollywood-like system even this matters less. Brad pitt rarely does those kinds of big budget deals and this has been so for a long time. He focuses on smaller stuff but no one thinks he’s less of a star because of this. Hollywood puts up those budgets only when it’s foolproof like a disaster movie or a Marvel franchise or some such thing or else when it’s the MI kind of franchise. They don’t often do this otherwise, at least over the last decade or so. yes a lot of their films are crazily budgeted but nonetheless those aren’t their most expensive films.
but the same is now true in a different sense in Bollywood. Even the biggest box office stars rarely get those budgets without any frills attached. It’s a sequel, it’s sci-fi, it’s a circus with other stars. When the same stars go solo the budgets are suddenly much more reasonable. Take CE! Or take Salman who does this in almost every single case barring ETT. The latter is the exception not the norm. And the stars know this themselves. SRK is not going to try Ra One in a hurry again. there are consequences to such failures. Both of his upcoming films after HNY are much more reasonable affairs in this sense. Akshay again doesn’t have the biggest budgets. Where are those major stars who have these super-productions on their own?! hrithik might still be a half-exception here to the extent that he goes in for the Kites kind of thing and then does some of these period romances. Obviously a big star can ensure some of these risks (even if no one was satisfied with the JA gross) but this is hardly the norm.
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July 2, 2014 at 9:44 AM
Thanks Bandra. Agree 100% with what you’ve stated.
Satyam knows exactly what I’m saying to him. Satyam and I will never agree on this point because he wants to believe that while other actors 100 crore or 200 crore grosser are underperformance (specially SRKs), abhis ¼ of it should be treated as some sort of achievement. Notice how he always give prediction for other actors but doesn’t for bachhan films. How genre, release date, Age of the actor, competition should be looked at for 2 to 3 stars but for all other actors, all of their films should be treated same regardless of genre, release date, budget, competition, etc..
If making successful circus was so easy, everybody would do it. Example I gave of Farah + Akshay in TMK versus Farah + SRK in MHN and OSO had a very different boxoffice result.
If you’re salim-javed, would you rather have SRK-Farhan do circus like they did with Don or would you rather have Amitabh-RGV do circus like they did with Sholay? Paying Public had given their verdict loud and clear on this.
You brought up an excellent point about “sake of survival”. I think Devgan did samthing. He was doing those routine b grade action films in 90’s and when even those were not working he started doing the serious drama roles which started his second inning.
Once again, excellent post by you and I agree with it 100%. It’s all big circus, nobody is in it to do public service, they all want to make crores.
There has to be some honesty once in a while in the posts. you can’t keep trying to sell sh!t as gold and treat gold as sh!t. People will catch on to it eventually no matter how lenghty the post is.
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July 2, 2014 at 10:23 AM
Satyam would agree/disagree with a lot of things provided the argument on your side was minimally in good faith. And don’t pretend otherwise. I’ve seen too many of your breed over the years not to be able to tell the difference. Abhishek is just a red herring for you (as he was for many others before you.. much as whether he did BnB or Guru or Raavan and KHJJS he was nonetheless considered to be at the same box office point). I’ve seen your statements on Aamir and Bachchan Sr as well. So let’s not play this game. I don’t mind people disagreeing with me but if an argument is made in bad faith to feed one’s personal agendas there is nothing to discuss. And don’t bother saying that you’re arguing only because I say stuff about Abhishek or SRK or whoever. I’ve heard this for years too. I’d love to believe that I’m influential to the degree that you guys are forced to respond to me (or in some cases even follow me to my blog as you have) but luckily I am more sane than that! It’s my opinion and/or analysis. Take it or leave it. No one has to be up in arms over it if they’re also pretending at the very same time that nothing I say is worth anything!
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July 2, 2014 at 11:09 AM
your arguments are always in bad faith so you get what you asked for, simple as that.
Your post are always in bad faith and is always trying to degrade other actors except your fav 3.
Try somethig new, you’ve been playing this games for many years now with no result.
I get it that it must be super frustrating for you to see SRK in top 3 year after year while your fav abhi is losing ground year after year. At this point he is not even in top 10, but that’s not SRKs fault so stop takign it out on him 🙂
On a side note, things don’t look good for you for few more years as HNY, Raees, Fan, Rohit Shetty next is lined up 🙂
Why don’t you read Bandra.NRI post again and take some tips from it on how to write posts.
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July 2, 2014 at 12:12 PM
I don’t need to since you’re here however I write..!
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July 2, 2014 at 7:57 PM
Z
You will not gain or lose anything by changing one person’s opinion. Winning an argument is not important. What is important is to have a conversation.
You have good points. Satyam too has good arguments. You should just learn to disagree about the the stars in question.
I think you two are more alike than you think.
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July 1, 2014 at 6:45 AM
should do a 100 if not more.
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July 1, 2014 at 11:32 AM
8 cr is good but I was hoping for 10 crore + Monday. Now it is looking at 120 crores finish considering the lean Ramzan period
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July 1, 2014 at 11:39 AM
yes that’s very possible..
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July 1, 2014 at 3:52 AM
Atlast tarun tejpal gets regular bail from SC.
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July 1, 2014 at 9:56 AM
And no newspaper/media giving any news of that Rajat Sharma who drove a young journalist Tanu Sharma to attmpt suicide.
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July 1, 2014 at 6:24 AM
I saw the film on Sunday.
Clearly some negative thoughts on SS – I actually liked the film a lot. It is not refreshing or original (I found similarities to Ghajini) but I was pleasantly surprised by the performances, songs. It is a “sick” film in some sense, but I did not take offence in the immoralities being thrown out. And I liked the screenplay and structure of the film. Was never bored, songs were really nice, the love story was simple and achieved its purpose.
On the box office, it is going to do well…should be steady IMO. The music is much better comparatively to some other stuff today with more emphasis on melody
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July 1, 2014 at 6:40 AM
Many of my friends also liked the movie.
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July 1, 2014 at 9:20 AM
The film could have easily been an episode of X Files! Ritesh’s character was one of an utter weirdo doing horrible things for pleasuring his wife. If instead his method of violence was more horrific (maybe he could have Luis Suarez’ fangs!) you could have had Scully and Mulder come in and try and figure it out!
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July 1, 2014 at 2:06 PM
Superb….
http://mumbaiboss.com/2014/07/01/the-vigil-idiot-ek-villain/
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July 2, 2014 at 2:47 AM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Oscar-nominated-writer-director-Mazursky-dies/articleshow/37601238.cms
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July 2, 2014 at 5:18 AM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news-interviews/Humshakals-I-asked-my-father-not-to-watch-the-film-says-Esha-Gupta/articleshow/37616095.cms
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July 2, 2014 at 10:41 AM
Ek Villain Tuesday Business
Wednesday 02 July 2014 12.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villain had a good Monday as it collected around 6.25-6.50 crore nett but collections have had a noticeable drop from Monday. Circuits like CP Berar, Rajasthan, Nizam and Gujarat have come off quite a bit from the levels over the weekend.
The drop is 15-20% from Monday which is a bit more than normal especially as Monday was also more than 50% from Friday. The film is being driven by business in Delhi/UP and East Punjab especially the multiplexes in these two circuits.
The first week business will be around 73-74 crore nett which is still a huge number despite the weekdays not performing as well as the weekend. The film is a medium budget film and its domestic theatrical price was covered by just the three day weekend business of the film.
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July 2, 2014 at 10:42 AM
taran adarsh @taran_adarsh · 9h
#EkVillain Wknd 50.70 cr, Mon 8.10 cr, Tue 6.80 cr. Total: ₹ 65.60 cr nett. India biz. MONSTROUS HIT!
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July 2, 2014 at 11:14 AM
I saw Villain, and the film is bad beyond belief: not just because of its offensive, sexist politics, but simply AS A FILM this is very poor — what dramatic tension there is “resolves” by intermission, leaving the second half as utterly dead time, with pointless flashback galore. This is really two films: a love story, and a serial killer film, and there is no reason why those two tracks are in the same film. I would be surprised if this held up (the audience in Juhu’s PVR was snickering) but over the years I have increasingly grown out of step, so might be off base here…
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July 2, 2014 at 12:12 PM
The thing is the Korean film was almost wholly about the revenge.
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July 2, 2014 at 1:05 PM
Its inspired from ghajini.
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July 2, 2014 at 5:01 PM
It can’t be ghajini –either as a film or in box office or in music or the hero …
But seems a reasonably respectable effort
After multiple attempts at ‘melodious music’ in ashiqui2 and other Mohit suri films–somehow the edge was missing esp for some one used to rahman/SEL types
But finally ‘galliyan’ cracked it –like the sound
Kaisa hai rishta tera-mera
Be-chehra phir bhi kitna gehra
Ye lamhe, lamhe ye resham se
Kho jaayein.. kho na jaayein humse
Kaafila.. waqt ka.. rok le..
Abr se juda na ho
Galliyan galliyan Teri galliyan…
For eg It’s the half a second delay before ‘kaafila’ ..
These are things that I enjoy
Ps: btw saw a clip –shraddha kapoor isn’t bad…
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July 2, 2014 at 10:26 PM
http://www.india-forums.com/bollywood/hot-n-happening/44503-oops-sidharth-malhotra-bouquets-at-siddharth-doorstep.htm
Here’s a case of mistaken identity – southern actor Siddharth has been receiving compliments for “Ek Villain”, which actually stars Sidharth Malhotra!
“Received so many bouquets and compliments on behalf of @S1dharthM that I feel responsible for the success of #ekvillain…thanks other Sid,” Siddharth, who featured in Hindi films “Rang De Basanti”, “Striker” and “Chashme Baddoor(2013)”, tweeted Wednesday.
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July 2, 2014 at 10:29 PM
http://www.india-forums.com/bollywood/hot-n-happening/44506-my-songs-express-natural-feelings-within-me-ankit-tiwari.htm
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July 3, 2014 at 1:21 AM
Very insightful piece by Richard Brody though I absolutely disagree with him on the Transformer films (thought all the films in the series are terrible)-
“……In any case, that’s why the binary scale of good and bad, like and dislike, is essentially pointless. Movies are complex experiences—even those that are simplistic or clumsily made are rich in substance—and sometimes criticism is like the science of medicine, with advances coming from diagnoses of some dread disease that you wouldn’t want to have. No, “Transformers: Age of Extinction” isn’t a model of enlightened thought or cinematic style, but it is—paradoxically, for a movie that’s filled with computer-generated robots—peculiarly alive, animated not by computers but by the character of its director, Michael Bay, for better and for worse.
Eric Kohn, at Indiewire, doesn’t like “Transformers” much, either. But in a notable essay in which he compares it unfavorably to the Argentinian director Lisandro Alonso’s “Jauja” (which doesn’t have U.S. distribution yet) and the South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s “Snowpiercer” (which opened on Friday, in limited release), he blames the unavailability of these and other movies on Michael Bay’s series:
Collectively, these movies represent an assault on the senses that’s actively fighting against the prospects of a more varied film culture. Whereas the proactive moviegoer aims to see as many new movies as possible, “Transformers: Age of Extinction” argues that you only need to see one.
Every movie makes movie-going a zero-sum game for the duration of a screening: a viewer paying to see one movie at a given moment isn’t paying for another (with the exception of under-seventeens who buy tickets to a PG-rated movie in order to see an R-rated one playing at the same time). But there’s nothing in “Transformers: Age of Extinction” that impedes the viewing of other movies; its assault on the senses is nothing compared to the average arena rock concert.
I haven’t seen “Jauja,” but I’ve seen another Alonso movie that Kohn praises—“Liverpool,” from 2008—and it reflects a much more refined sensibility than Bay’s but not more cinematic imagination than “Transformers: Age of Extinction.” But it’s the refinement, the overtly artistic intentions of that film, that stand out compared to Bay’s, and that are, I think, at the heart of the controversy.
Alonso is, in effect, a classical composer of earnest intent and notable inspiration, and Bay is a rock musician of vulgar but distinctive extravagance. Both are well within the mainstream of their chosen niches. There’s a difference in style, tone, and tradition, and there isn’t going to be a great deal of crossover in their audiences—with the likely exception of critics. On the other hand, as Kohn points out, Alonso is paired with an arts organization that exists to sustain his sort of ambitions—he’ll have a six-week residency at Lincoln Center this fall—and I hope that “Jauja” turns up there, at the New York Film Festival, at the same time. If it’s as good as Kohn and others say, it’s just the sort of movie that the festival exists to showcase.
But complaining about pop driving art out of the market is doubly misplaced in movies, when so many of the classics (ancient and modern) are products of the mainstream industry—whether those of the high-studio era by Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks, Douglas Sirk and Nicholas Ray, or those of today’s independently financed off-Hollywood of Wes Anderson and Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese and Sofia Coppola, David Fincher and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Movies that call attention to their high-art pedigree have no necessary claim on the status that their directors aspire to. Some movies of rarefied aspiration and literary or otherwise classical tradition indeed reach heights of graceful sublimity, and proof of the increased diversity in today’s movie culture is the fact that such movies (including those by Chantal Akerman, Tsai Ming-liang, and Joaquim Pinto) find a place in the world of distribution and exhibition—one that depends, in significant measure, on not-for-profit arts organizations of exactly the sort that such exalted filmmakers as Carl Theodor Dreyer or Robert Bresson lacked during their career-long battles with the demands of commercial producers and distributors.
But there are also aspirational movies—those of the art-house consensus—that feed what might be called “upmarket” or “sophisticated” viewers a pre-packaged set of comforting verities and soothing moods that are, in relation to the rarefied cinema of classical inspiration, what Mantovani is to Beethoven. These movies join a faux-objective aesthetic of ostensibly humanistic realism with comforting, politically liberal enthusiasms to match. The problem isn’t with the point of view (which is one I share) but with its jollying. The large-scale, mass-market demagogy of movies such as “Transformers: Age of Extinction” is no worse than the niche-market demagogy of, say, “Obvious Child.” Both movies appear tailor made to their target audience’s expectations and prejudices…..”
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2014/06/transformers-and-independent-film.html
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July 3, 2014 at 1:27 AM
Here is Brody’s review on the Transformers film-
Michael Bay’s Meticulous Excess
Posted by Richard Brody
“…In other words, Bay knows to throw the meaty cinematic bones of Tucci’s arch wit and Wahlberg’s insolent intensity to parents who are taking their children to the movie even as he hews the colossal robots’ stilted dialogue to the scale of granitic tweets. He offers a prehistoric prologue that both plays to the prepubescent balcony (what kid doesn’t like dinosaurs?) and amps up the psychic stakes of the title: blaming the extinction of the dinosaurs on the dastardly Decepticons, he lets us know from the start that if the heroes don’t save the day we, too, will face the same fate.
In addition, he really knows how to blow shit up. The scale of the destruction in Gareth Edwards’s “Godzilla” is much greater than anything in “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” but Edwards is a moralist—he takes no pleasure in filming the destruction, and conveys none. Bay has no such compunction; the massive destruction that strikes various workshops and workplaces, and Hong Kong at large, is depicted with a gleeful vigor that seemingly defies viewers to enjoy it even while knowing that such calamities, if real, would be horrific beyond measure. It’s a challenge that Bay doesn’t shrink from—his crime comedy “Pain and Gain” depended on the same double game of moral revulsion and narrative delight.
Bay has the passionate integrity of a natural cynic. He’s not a sincere sentimentalist like Steven Spielberg; he has a roguish honesty that doesn’t hide behind noble intentions and displays its ravenous appetites and crafty calculations openly. His entire hundred-and-sixty-five-million-dollar budget is there to be seen on the screen, with the price tag showing and the expected return underneath. The two hours and forty-five minutes of “Transformers: Age of Extinction” reveal his attention and concern, with each moment crafted to hold the audience through hysterical and vulgar excess. Bay doesn’t deign to extend his extraordinary control to the images; he substitutes attitude for comprehension and swagger for observation, and, for all his meticulous command over the movie’s elements of action and design, performance and effect, his taste is cheerfully execrable. He’s the Wes Anderson of dreck……”
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2014/06/the-meticulous-excess-of-michael-bays-transformers.html
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July 3, 2014 at 1:40 AM
I think this review could only have been written by someone unfamiliar with the Transformers universe, at least in its comic book and animated forms. Keeping that legacy in mind, the first Transformers was so wretched I wasn’t tempted to watch any of the others (nothing in it seemed to matter — contrast with the death, loss, and life that suffused the 1985 animated movie; the infantilisation of the public is so complete that it takes some doing to remember that the 1985 animated movie was targeted primarily at kids, while Bay’s crap routinely finds large adult audiences)..
A bit offensive, but a comment I heard at that screening in a NY cinema:
“Optimus Prime has lips?! What’s he gonna do with those, give a blowjob?!”
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July 3, 2014 at 3:48 AM
#EkVillain Wknd 50.70 cr, Mon 8.10 cr, Tue 6.80 cr, Wed 6.40 cr. Total: ₹ 72 cr nett. India biz. Aiming for ₹ 77 cr+ Week 1. HUMONGOUS!
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July 3, 2014 at 9:05 AM
Ek Villian To Lead Again This Week
Thursday 03 July 2014 11.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ek Villain is likely to be the top film for the second week running despite seeing only decent trend on the weekdays after a fantastic initial. Both of the major new releases Bobby Jasoos and Lekar Hum Deewana Dil will find it hard to challenge Ek Villain unless there is phenomenal growth for one of the films.
Bobby Jasoos is likely to lead on day one simply because the film will have a wider reach and non star cast urban rom-coms like Lekar Hum Deewana Dil have found it very hard in the last year or so.
Still even if Bobby Jasoos comes out ahead of Lekar Hum Deewana Dil it will not mean much unless its a good number or at least decent. The film may do best in Nizam/Andhra as it is set in Hyderabad but the Nizam/Andhra belt would have fared even better if it was not released in Ramadan as that is the circuit which gets affected the most. The collections of Ek Villain from Monday in the circuit are testimony to that.
Lekar Hum Deewana Dil has been well promoted despite having new faces but the genre has been struggling so it will have to surprise with huge growth on Saturday.
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July 3, 2014 at 11:46 PM
Bizarre release by Bobby Jasoos… making film about Hyderbad Muslim girl and shot completely over there and then releasing in Ramadan when very few of them will watch it doesn’t make sense. That would have been the best city to get maximum returns for this sort of film. Very few films are ever short in that city anymore.
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July 3, 2014 at 2:42 PM
Shailesh Kapoor @shaileshkapoor · 13h
Dhoom 3 TVR: 3.9. Decent for the genre.
3 Idiots was 10.9, Chennai Express was 9.5, Bodyuard 10.3, Dabangg was 9.2, Bol Bachchan 4.8, ETT 4.6, Ra.1 was 6.7, JTHJ was 2.4
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July 3, 2014 at 2:54 PM
Bizarre..
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July 4, 2014 at 12:02 AM
Yeah this was shocking for the Satellite rights market. Might impact future big films satellite prices.
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July 3, 2014 at 3:34 PM
seems Humshakals has completely been rejected in week 2. neither BOI nor Taran are confirming anything on its BO performance lately.
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July 3, 2014 at 3:36 PM
yes it’s only been a bit better than Himmatwala which isn’t saying much!
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July 3, 2014 at 3:46 PM
How Humshakals took good opening also is beyond me…the trailers, music, dialogue, sets all look outdated and cheap…looked like some comedy from 90’s or even worse than that.
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July 3, 2014 at 3:54 PM
but that genre opens well these days.. actually and though I would never watch the film I sort of wish it had done well for Saif. The guy deserves to be in a better position than he is. And he too has tried a lot of interesting stuff that hasn’t worked.
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July 3, 2014 at 4:02 PM
Agree about Saif
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July 3, 2014 at 4:31 PM
Good comment above about the ‘infantilisation of public’
Hope ‘Optimus primes lips’ work only on a ‘co-transformer’ (& not a human)
Anyhow folks–
Imo Richard linklater & Ethan Hawke produced cinema gold in the ‘before’ series
Now they return…
Loved before sunrise/midnight….(& it’s good they’ve left out Julie Delphi)
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