This entry was posted on August 18, 2015 at 3:00 AM and is filed under the ugly. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Thought it was a sequel but this looks same as first one . Anil and Nana are alright here but why did they have to cast John he really is a terrible actor ruined the trailer for me .
Quite funny. Much better than All Is Well. . And Shriti obviously cannnot match Katrina’s sizzle, but she has a charm of her own. But, yes, John is a dampener. I would have preferred Sahid, if they could not get Akshay.
But i also differ from Utkal on this that it is much better than AIW for the sole reason that AIW might a story to tell compare to no brainer like WB2 …time will tell..
Amit: The prsence of a ‘story’ won’t make it a better film for me. Lame jokes like ‘ I want to make water’ has already made the film appear pretty stupid for me. In compariosn, Welcome Back seems to be pretty intelligently written.
I dont want to argue or demean any film but if you say so then Utkal do enlighten how the dialogue at 0.41sec by ak glorifying and saying ‘mere bhi 2 – 4 alqauida’ hote’ is intelligent…
I think it’s sometimes easier in life to just say one prefers one film over another. If one has to resort to calling Anees Bazmee’s comedy ‘intelligent’ I think one has more or less conceded the point! I’ve never had much taste for Bazmee (at least with his most famous films), I’d easily take Shetty over him (now this is a real devil’s choice!) but this still looks very tired. And John’s certainly weak here. Nonetheless this is a sequel and might have enough going for it.
On your other point All is Well is clearly about the narrative. The director has stated he can never make a meaningless comedy or anything short of a message film. The question then of course revolves around the degree to which he’s done his job here. I am pretty confident this is going to be a successful film, they certainly seem to be pulling out all the stops in terms of putting in stuff to attract the audience. But that’s not the ultimate test of this film. Specially so since Abhishek also needs not just a success but the biggest one possible at this stage. And so to get the right trending you need the right narrative and the right emotional pitch (given this is the aim here) at key points.
Punning ‘kaida’ with ‘Al Qaida’ by a charcater who is some kind of a mafia don is certainly intelligent, I thought. That is the intelligent verbal humour of anees Bazmi I was talking about. It needs a ceratin level of literacy and love for words – to write as well as apprecaite – lines like these.
Satyam: There are levesl between dumb, unfunny lines and Shakespeare. Evcen so, if I take the level of word play in lines like ‘ Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl: I meddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters, but with awl. I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon
neat’s-leather have gone upon my handiwork.’ , the play of words with ‘ kaida’ and ‘ al qaida’ doesn’t fare too badly.
Satyam: Unfortuantely, I am not intimidtaed by names. In my universe Anees Bazmi can be as good as Shakespeare in verbal humour. And Oscar Wilde, better. So the sarcasm does not really colour my judgment.
welcome was and is really funny…still watch it whenever its played on TV……was hoping WB to be as good a trailer…few of recent trailers like welcome to karachi and guddu rangeela were funnier…
Was this movie made with Black money or are the producers just stupid? Always suspicious of movies filmed in Dubai and It looks like a big budget ~70 crores on a John Abraham move. Plus theres like 2-3 unknown producers. This could be pretty good and Actually its been a while since I’ve seen a big circus film where all the actors come together in the climax. I think Golmaal 3 was the last big movie. I think this could beat John’s last comedy multistarrer film Housefull 2. And he’s doing pretty well here because he isn’t doing straight buffoonery comedy that Akshay Kumar is so good at.
I also think there can be involvement of black money here. Firoz Nadiadwala is almost bankrupt and garnered resources from all corners for producing this one. WB release was getting delayed for long time as they didnt have a studio backing. Eros bought it and Hera Pheri 3 for combined sum of 130 cr and that saved Firoz N.
It’s not every day that we see a major production house releasing two big ticket films on the same day. In fact most of the industry filmmakers look for that one ideal date to release their film to maximize its box-office profitability. However, the mega production house Eros International finds itself in somewhat of a jam with two of its big ticket films scheduled to release on the same day.
For those of you wondering what we are talking about, the story goes like this. On June 29, John Abraham had tweeted announcing the release date of his film Welcome Back, saying that the film featuring him alongside Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar and Paresh Rawal was slated to hit the screens on September 4. Interestingly, Eros acquired the distribution rights of the film that is produced by Firoz Nadiadwala.
Cut to three days later on July 2, Salman Khan announces the release date of the Hero remake featuring Sooraj Pancholi and Athiya Shetty on the same day, September 4. Now here arises the problem, with Eros co-producing Hero with Salman Khan’s Being Human Productions and Mukta Arts, the production house wound up having two big releases on the same day. With both films being distributed by Eros, the next obvious solution would be to postpone the release of either one.
However, from Salman’s tweet, it didn’t seem like he is in any mood to move his film. “Back off… HERO coming on 4th September,” tweeted Salman Khan.
Interestingly, Salman Khan and John Abraham don’t have a pretty past. The two actors had a showdown during Rockstars concert that they did way back in 2006. Then recently, when John was promoting his film Madras Cafe, he commented that his film is more realistic compared to Salman’s Ek Tha Tiger. However, despite all this, the two actors did patch up when they met at a film studio. But now it seems like Salman wants to take the John starrer head on with his film Hero.
At the same time, there are reports that when Eros approached Salman to resolve this matter, he sternly maintained that he will release Hero on September 4. This leaves John Abraham and producer Firoz Nadiadwala with no choice but to move their release date by a week. Apparently. Eros is now pushing the release date of John’s Welcome Back, which has been suffering multiple delays, to September 11, in essence leaving September 4 vacant for the release of Salman Khan’s Hero. The interesting question or rather learning that arises here is that, Salman has become such a big name within the industry that mega production/ distribution houses and even A-list celebrities would prefer to swallow their pride than to go head to head in a box-office battle with him.
In fact, Salman Khan will also be clashing next year with Shah Rukh Khan when Sultan and Raees battle it out at the box-office. However for now, the one left bearing the brunt of this unintentional mix-up will be John Abraham, who will finally have to swallow the bitter pill.
The official announcement on the release dates is expected from Eros soon.
The trailor is too long. I don’t know why people cut a trailor above 3 mins. An ideal trailor should be around 2 mins. With Anees Bazmee you know what you will get. And the original movie became more popular later on in the small screen so there will some sort of buzz around this sequel I would think. Regarding comparison with AIW trailor I would say both were quite flat. This being a sequel it will have an headstart. In any case there is a 2 week gap between the two so this movie is not a direct competition in any case.
AIW needs a hit track and it should be fine. There hasn’t been many family movies so there will be an audience for it. The trailor hasn’t created too much buzz but a sustained promotion campaign and a hit track will do the trick.
In general I think Satyam the trailor hasn’t generated too much talking points, even in this blog. I think the images of AIW generated more comments. Its possible that the song was released almost immediately after the trailor due to the same reason. The song is more appealing than the trailor IMO.
that’s quite true.. but being a hit on twitter isn’t a bad way to start… or let’s say it’s certainly not a disadvantage.. anyway the media is covering this 2m hits story all over the place. presumably it means something..!
I thought the number spoke for itself.. films in the past have been ‘celebrated’ for putting up these kinds of numbers on youtube..
Of course if the world operated by the response on this blog Raavan would be a super hit..! In any case the releases are not too far off.. let’s see what happens!
I will say that for a number of reasons I don’t find many of the responses ‘sincere’ to put it kindly. But then I’ve made this historic point. You don’t like a star or a film or a genre or whatever, there ought to be no issue saying it upfront. It’s when people play games and frame arguments in certain ways that bring their credibility into question and then when the same folks can’t explain themselves when questioned in very precise/specific ways one knows what’s going on! Often the arguments have a ‘make it up as you go along’ tone to them. Or it’s the borrowed kettle logic. What’s a quick example of this?
1)Abhishek isn’t right for over the top and AIW is over the top
2)Abhishek is right for over the top but AIW looks flat
3)Abhishek is right for prestige cinema not this stuff
4)I hate Raavan and D6, I only like prestige cinema that everyone else likes
5)So what if AIW is a hit, it won’t be a big one
6)So what if AIW is a hit, Rishi Kapoor is the lead
7)with a hit song any film can be a hit
8)alright AIW is a hit let’s see if ABhishek can do this for another 25 years, then we’ll call him a major star
9)Oh my god (pun intended)! AIW is a massive hit, it made 80 crores! (this is the damning with faint praise logic)
I could go on and on. Is there some caricature here? Sure. But not much. You take all the arguments, you put them in a box and mix them up and you get this sort of thing. again (and I’ve been saying this for years) my problem isn’t with people liking a star (in this case Abhishek) or not or whatever. But the arguments just use different yardsticks for him. In other words you’re not much of an Abhishek fan but you only want him in a Guru or something. On the other hand the star you’re really a fan of you don’t mind in all kinds of stuff! When I say ‘you’ I mean it generically. And so the problem once again is the lack of an argument that has minimal integrity to it. Consciously or otherwise. of course it is cynical in many cases but that’s another matter. Ultimately films don’t do well or not based on what we discuss here or anywhere else but we can keep insisting on certain narratives unless things are that obvious one way or the other. If it’s PK at one end and BV at another obviously no one can ‘debate’ anything. And specially with Abhishek whether it was his Yuva through Guru phase or his terrible phase some years later or his multistarrer phase recently or now All is Well no matter what the situation the arguments presented are always a combination of some of the above (that I’ve outlined). Much as we see this in the trade also (referring to those who have a high media profile). Nahata maintains radio silence, Taran pretends to be fair and these days he generally doesn’t take positions against films as explicitly as he used to but nonetheless he still ignores some trailers and not others whereas otherwise he’s putting up posters and trailers of everything in sight. And so this still gets me to my old argument.. what is it about the Bachchan sign that still provokes so much anxiety?!
getting back to All is Well as far as I can tell the media has by and large responded positively to it (unlike folks here), the trailer seems to be getting attention (I don’t think every film gets 2m views within a short period of time.. for an Abhishek solo that ought to be more remarkable..). However if one is going to say things that make it sound like Game or something (i.e. when Abhishek was at his lowest point and wasn’t attracting any interest for anything) it does sound a bit odd. I;ll say this once more.. I’ve seen this sort of recycled logic for years online when it comes to him. Every other star in every other scenario is given more benefit of the doubt. Without exception. I don’t want to make this response more encyclopedic than it already is but I could offer lots of other examples too. I think it’s sometimes just easier to say a)I don’t like the star b)I don’t want him to do well. People often admit the former, rarely the latter. And then when it’s former they’re not satisfied with it, they have to make the star they don’t like ‘nothing’. Hence these dishonest or at least questionable arguments then come in handy. By the way I still haven’t take a call on AIW. I’m confident we’re looking at a hit here but can’t say beyond this. Why? Precisely because Abhishek hasn’t done a solo for a long time and it’s hard to say how this will open. Secondly while OMG was very successful and has had a shelf life Shukla nonetheless doesn’t have enough of a track record. And so saying more than this is hard. I would bet more if Abhishek were in a sounder position and/or the director were so. I do think however that this film might surprise many people.
LOL.!
It is ridiculous to keep Rohit Shetty and Bazmee in the same bracket.
Rohit Shetty’s movies have the right mix of Comedy, Romance and Emotions ( BB, ATB and CE).
I hope that Umesh Shukla shows AIW to Rohit Shetty and consults with him before releasing it.
I liked the trailer but the Shanivar song is awful!!
Was this big response meant for me as I said the trailor doesn’t seem to carry any buzz? I didn’t mean it as a slight to the movie. I honestly felt the trailor lacked punch.
No, it was a larger point.. some of it might be relevant to your responses also. I wasn’t arguing with whether you liked the trailer or not or whether you think the film or not. I never debate much about these micro issues. I am much more interested in how these questions are ‘framed’ and I’ve argued with you before as well about this in different contexts. But with all due respect this is a fairly common response too… ‘hey I was only arguing saying I didn’t like the trailer’! In other words things are framed a certain way but when one is quizzed about it one can always make it a micro point saying what you just did. Having said that I’ll repeat that I was addressing a number of points (and folks) in that response. But I stand by what I’ve said to you in many contexts earlier as well. In other words I don’t find the framing credible and/or honest in many of these situations. And this has nothing to do with whether one likes a star or not, a trailer or not, whether one thinks a film will work or not.
Of course for the record you’ve still avoided answering anything specific (as always!). So for example in the past big films talk about getting 2 m views or 4 m views or whatever on online portals and this is celebrated in the media. The same is now done for AIW and you think ‘there’s nothing to see here’. And here’s my very logical question. Either you must say that youtube views don’t mean anything for any film (this too would be hard to argue on logical grounds since certain films clearly do better than others on this score and indicate some level of audience interest that’s greater in one case and lesser in another) or if you do think they mean something you must admit that AIW ran up an impressive number pretty fast. If you accept the latter though this raises other equally logical questions. If it’s an absolute top star you might say that the views don’t mean much and are only reflective of the star’s standing. However if it’s Abhishek where presumably you would not say he’s that kind of star then what explains these views? In other words if there’s no buzz about it and no interest how come these numbers are so high? What makes this all the more surprising is that to the extent Shukla has massy elements here and if one assumes that those massy elements attract more of a non-multiplex audience well then that very audience is underrepresented on youtube! In other words if it’s a Piku you could say that it’s all about multiplex audience interest which is mostly the kind showing up on youtube. But here when the film clearly does not look like a multiplex only deal and clearly has those Bazmee/Shetty-like elements or whatever it’s even more striking that an ‘online’ audience is interested in it to the degree that those numbers are so high. The trailer is at 2.6m at the moment, the char shanivaar song more or less had the same views as the recent Bajrangi song (both released the same day.. but one has Salman, one has Abhishek.. both were around 860k when I checked earlier). How did that happen? Unless you want to argue that char shanivaar is a much more popular song off the bat. Don’t think you want to argue that either! This is the kind of thing I argue about. Argue with some specifics. don’t just brake generic claims. A film doesn’t become a hit based on youtube responses. everyone knows that. On the other hand there must be some way of explaining these numbers. You can just say that no one liked the trailer, there’s no buzz, the song hasn’t appealed to anyone, etc etc and yet have no explanation for why those numbers are that high. There is no way of accounting for the latter without withdrawing some of those other claims. This is one example. I’ve offered others in the past when HNY released. I’ve argued about the box office as well with you. The problem always is that a number of statements can be made about things that are then contradictory when put together. And I’ve been seeing this kind of argument being used for years and years. It’s actually even a sense of deja vu for me to see you frame things the way others did maybe 10years ago or more. I had the same questions then as I do now and I can’t say I’ve got any convincing answers either way.
I think you are over analysing here. I, for one, have never mentioned anything about any movies internet hits till now. I don’t even know how it is measured. Whether one person viewing the trailer 100 times is 100 view or is it 1 view as it only one person. Now that you provided me the link, I went ahead and checked the views of Bhajrangi Baijaan. It has only 1.9 mn views. And brothers have 6 mn views. But we know which movie will open better…So when the movie opens one will know if there was indeed a buzz about the movie or not.
Now a TWM trailer created lot of buzz, I could see genuine interest in people to see that movie…Hence the opening occupancies was expected. I do not the internet views of the trailor though and if there was a correlation But there was a buzz for that movie..And by that I mean among friends, acquaintances, blogs etc. The same amount of interest is yet to be evoked for AIW is what I feel. And I again base it only on my interactions with others in blogs, friends, acquaintances, bulletin boards…I maybe wrong. Maybe I am interacting with the wrong set of people. Its possible but surely my statement was meant to create so much strife…
Actually the Bajrangi trailer was released on youtube by Eros and SKF (Salman Khan films) channels at the same time. Eros probably had it on their website as well. If you look at just those two sources the film has 5m views in 2 weeks. Brothers has close to 7m in 3. But Bajrangi as I said might have had other outlets as well. For example HNY did 4.5m in a short period of times over 3-4 outlets. So one youtube channel isn’t always the case with every film. AIW is close to 2.7m in 6 days. Again my point here isn’t about how it will open vis-a-vis other films but that this kind of brisk activity must be considered unusual all things considered (AIW). So yes I too don’t expect Brothers to open like Bajrangi but I also don’t expect it to open poorly. It could be that no one is really interested in watching AIW but they’re far more interested in watching the trailer than they are in many other cases. Possible I suppose! Are 100 people viewing the trailer 2.6m times? Maybe that’s possible too! By the way on Salman’s films remember the other point I made. It is entirely possible that Brothers and Bajrangi less of a multiplex spread which would explain similar youtube numbers and a much wider one elsewhere which again would not be represented on youtube. But also note how this film doesn’t seem to have created too much interest online. this might not mean much because again we’re measuring a multiplex sample online but certainly I don’t think any film of his other than Jai Ho was received in such lukewarm fashion by this crowd.
Incidentally the Tanu trailer got 8.3m views in 2 months. Again I don’t know whether that was the only channel. Eros might have shown it on their site as well. The other day Welcome Back was released but wasn’t available on youtube even after 24 hrs. It was however there on the Eros site. They put it up last yesterday I think and it just has 75k views so far (but these don’t include the eros numbers). So these things have to be factored in but Tanu in any case has a high enough number (I don’t know what the initial numbers were). On the other hand DDD on the Eros channel has 1.5m views in the same two months. If Eros released it on their site they must have done it for Tanu as well. One final example. ABCD2 has 7.6 m views in 2 months on the UTV channel. I’m not suggesting these views can be correlated with an opening in any simplistic sense because a number of other factors come into play. However by the same token such a brisk also means something. It is at the very least positive for the film. I’ve been saying all along that despite everything I can’t be certain about the film’s opening and what that number might look like. So I’m hardly ignoring the obvious. But AIW is certainly keeping pace with successful films and/or films expected to do well. At least in this limited youtube sense.
On a different note AIW might get lucky. Welcome Back is Sep 11 and now some rumors circulating about a Phantom delay (though Kabir Khan still says it’s the 28th).
IMO the single biggest positive for AIW is its target audience. The family audience haven’t had much to rejoice for a long time and one of the reason TWM2 did so well was that it brought them out in droves. And sandwiching between Brothers and Phantom is not such a bad thing as none of those two movies are targeting the family audience. Drishyam comes much before AIW and Welcome back is atleast 2 weeks later. So if the WOM is positive it should do well.
true but competition still cannot be ignored. Also family audience or not the film has to be liked. There’s no greater pass this demographic gives a film. Which is why few family films do as well as Tanu or Piku (at either end). Of course if any film has extraordinary WOM that’s another matter but that’s too high a bar on most days!
Absence of Akshay is clearly missing … John is fine as sidey roles or lead in small budget movies .. but not fit for main lead in big commercial movie like this …
Yakuza: John does seem like a misfit here. The other problem is Shruti Haasan, this doesn’t seem like her scene at all. To make matters worse they’ve mirrored the Feroz Khan angle by having Naseer show up here — the whole thing seems very stale…
SATYAMSHOT 
July 6, 2015 at 12:02 PM
Thought it was a sequel but this looks same as first one . Anil and Nana are alright here but why did they have to cast John he really is a terrible actor ruined the trailer for me .
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 12:10 PM
Quite funny. Much better than All Is Well. . And Shriti obviously cannnot match Katrina’s sizzle, but she has a charm of her own. But, yes, John is a dampener. I would have preferred Sahid, if they could not get Akshay.
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 12:14 PM
A Rohit Shetty movie….without Rohit Shetty’s name.
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 12:20 PM
This is nothing like a Rohit Shetty film. It has Anees Bazmi written all over it,…with his signature verbal humour enlivening every scene.
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 1:03 PM
Seems an easy 100 crs grosser.. Nana n anil ‘s combo with tadka of paresh is good enough to sail it through winning end..
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 1:06 PM
But i also differ from Utkal on this that it is much better than AIW for the sole reason that AIW might a story to tell compare to no brainer like WB2 …time will tell..
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 1:29 PM
Amit: The prsence of a ‘story’ won’t make it a better film for me. Lame jokes like ‘ I want to make water’ has already made the film appear pretty stupid for me. In compariosn, Welcome Back seems to be pretty intelligently written.
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 1:43 PM
I dont want to argue or demean any film but if you say so then Utkal do enlighten how the dialogue at 0.41sec by ak glorifying and saying ‘mere bhi 2 – 4 alqauida’ hote’ is intelligent…
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 1:57 PM
I think it’s sometimes easier in life to just say one prefers one film over another. If one has to resort to calling Anees Bazmee’s comedy ‘intelligent’ I think one has more or less conceded the point! I’ve never had much taste for Bazmee (at least with his most famous films), I’d easily take Shetty over him (now this is a real devil’s choice!) but this still looks very tired. And John’s certainly weak here. Nonetheless this is a sequel and might have enough going for it.
On your other point All is Well is clearly about the narrative. The director has stated he can never make a meaningless comedy or anything short of a message film. The question then of course revolves around the degree to which he’s done his job here. I am pretty confident this is going to be a successful film, they certainly seem to be pulling out all the stops in terms of putting in stuff to attract the audience. But that’s not the ultimate test of this film. Specially so since Abhishek also needs not just a success but the biggest one possible at this stage. And so to get the right trending you need the right narrative and the right emotional pitch (given this is the aim here) at key points.
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 1:51 PM
Punning ‘kaida’ with ‘Al Qaida’ by a charcater who is some kind of a mafia don is certainly intelligent, I thought. That is the intelligent verbal humour of anees Bazmi I was talking about. It needs a ceratin level of literacy and love for words – to write as well as apprecaite – lines like these.
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 1:58 PM
Yes he could give Shakespeare a run for his money. Read: sarcasm.
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 2:07 PM
Satyam: There are levesl between dumb, unfunny lines and Shakespeare. Evcen so, if I take the level of word play in lines like ‘ Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl: I meddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters, but with awl. I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon
neat’s-leather have gone upon my handiwork.’ , the play of words with ‘ kaida’ and ‘ al qaida’ doesn’t fare too badly.
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 2:12 PM
Darn Utkal, I even offered the sarcasm warning!
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 2:23 PM
Satyam: Unfortuantely, I am not intimidtaed by names. In my universe Anees Bazmi can be as good as Shakespeare in verbal humour. And Oscar Wilde, better. So the sarcasm does not really colour my judgment.
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 2:29 PM
“In my universe Anees Bazmi can be as good as Shakespeare in verbal humor.”
I think there are medically exact names for this condition..
Sorry couldn’t resist it.. I know you are still not intimidated!
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 9:55 PM
Utkal, found all your comments to be funnier than the trailer….;) you seriously found this trailer funny ?
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 10:02 PM
welcome was and is really funny…still watch it whenever its played on TV……was hoping WB to be as good a trailer…few of recent trailers like welcome to karachi and guddu rangeela were funnier…
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 6:21 PM
Was this movie made with Black money or are the producers just stupid? Always suspicious of movies filmed in Dubai and It looks like a big budget ~70 crores on a John Abraham move. Plus theres like 2-3 unknown producers. This could be pretty good and Actually its been a while since I’ve seen a big circus film where all the actors come together in the climax. I think Golmaal 3 was the last big movie. I think this could beat John’s last comedy multistarrer film Housefull 2. And he’s doing pretty well here because he isn’t doing straight buffoonery comedy that Akshay Kumar is so good at.
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 3:24 AM
I also think there can be involvement of black money here. Firoz Nadiadwala is almost bankrupt and garnered resources from all corners for producing this one. WB release was getting delayed for long time as they didnt have a studio backing. Eros bought it and Hera Pheri 3 for combined sum of 130 cr and that saved Firoz N.
LikeLike
July 6, 2015 at 6:30 PM
It’s not every day that we see a major production house releasing two big ticket films on the same day. In fact most of the industry filmmakers look for that one ideal date to release their film to maximize its box-office profitability. However, the mega production house Eros International finds itself in somewhat of a jam with two of its big ticket films scheduled to release on the same day.
For those of you wondering what we are talking about, the story goes like this. On June 29, John Abraham had tweeted announcing the release date of his film Welcome Back, saying that the film featuring him alongside Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar and Paresh Rawal was slated to hit the screens on September 4. Interestingly, Eros acquired the distribution rights of the film that is produced by Firoz Nadiadwala.
Cut to three days later on July 2, Salman Khan announces the release date of the Hero remake featuring Sooraj Pancholi and Athiya Shetty on the same day, September 4. Now here arises the problem, with Eros co-producing Hero with Salman Khan’s Being Human Productions and Mukta Arts, the production house wound up having two big releases on the same day. With both films being distributed by Eros, the next obvious solution would be to postpone the release of either one.
However, from Salman’s tweet, it didn’t seem like he is in any mood to move his film. “Back off… HERO coming on 4th September,” tweeted Salman Khan.
Interestingly, Salman Khan and John Abraham don’t have a pretty past. The two actors had a showdown during Rockstars concert that they did way back in 2006. Then recently, when John was promoting his film Madras Cafe, he commented that his film is more realistic compared to Salman’s Ek Tha Tiger. However, despite all this, the two actors did patch up when they met at a film studio. But now it seems like Salman wants to take the John starrer head on with his film Hero.
At the same time, there are reports that when Eros approached Salman to resolve this matter, he sternly maintained that he will release Hero on September 4. This leaves John Abraham and producer Firoz Nadiadwala with no choice but to move their release date by a week. Apparently. Eros is now pushing the release date of John’s Welcome Back, which has been suffering multiple delays, to September 11, in essence leaving September 4 vacant for the release of Salman Khan’s Hero. The interesting question or rather learning that arises here is that, Salman has become such a big name within the industry that mega production/ distribution houses and even A-list celebrities would prefer to swallow their pride than to go head to head in a box-office battle with him.
In fact, Salman Khan will also be clashing next year with Shah Rukh Khan when Sultan and Raees battle it out at the box-office. However for now, the one left bearing the brunt of this unintentional mix-up will be John Abraham, who will finally have to swallow the bitter pill.
The official announcement on the release dates is expected from Eros soon.
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 8:19 AM
The trailor is too long. I don’t know why people cut a trailor above 3 mins. An ideal trailor should be around 2 mins. With Anees Bazmee you know what you will get. And the original movie became more popular later on in the small screen so there will some sort of buzz around this sequel I would think. Regarding comparison with AIW trailor I would say both were quite flat. This being a sequel it will have an headstart. In any case there is a 2 week gap between the two so this movie is not a direct competition in any case.
AIW needs a hit track and it should be fine. There hasn’t been many family movies so there will be an audience for it. The trailor hasn’t created too much buzz but a sustained promotion campaign and a hit track will do the trick.
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 9:17 AM
not bad for a trailer that hasn’t created “too much buzz”…
http://indianfilmreporter.com/news.php?utm_content=bufferebc76&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#NEWS48
actually at 2.5m now..
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 9:28 AM
In general I think Satyam the trailor hasn’t generated too much talking points, even in this blog. I think the images of AIW generated more comments. Its possible that the song was released almost immediately after the trailor due to the same reason. The song is more appealing than the trailor IMO.
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 9:55 AM
Some films are hit on ‘twitter’ and some films are hit on box-office 🙂
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 10:25 AM
that’s quite true.. but being a hit on twitter isn’t a bad way to start… or let’s say it’s certainly not a disadvantage.. anyway the media is covering this 2m hits story all over the place. presumably it means something..!
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 10:23 AM
I thought the number spoke for itself.. films in the past have been ‘celebrated’ for putting up these kinds of numbers on youtube..
Of course if the world operated by the response on this blog Raavan would be a super hit..! In any case the releases are not too far off.. let’s see what happens!
I will say that for a number of reasons I don’t find many of the responses ‘sincere’ to put it kindly. But then I’ve made this historic point. You don’t like a star or a film or a genre or whatever, there ought to be no issue saying it upfront. It’s when people play games and frame arguments in certain ways that bring their credibility into question and then when the same folks can’t explain themselves when questioned in very precise/specific ways one knows what’s going on! Often the arguments have a ‘make it up as you go along’ tone to them. Or it’s the borrowed kettle logic. What’s a quick example of this?
1)Abhishek isn’t right for over the top and AIW is over the top
2)Abhishek is right for over the top but AIW looks flat
3)Abhishek is right for prestige cinema not this stuff
4)I hate Raavan and D6, I only like prestige cinema that everyone else likes
5)So what if AIW is a hit, it won’t be a big one
6)So what if AIW is a hit, Rishi Kapoor is the lead
7)with a hit song any film can be a hit
8)alright AIW is a hit let’s see if ABhishek can do this for another 25 years, then we’ll call him a major star
9)Oh my god (pun intended)! AIW is a massive hit, it made 80 crores! (this is the damning with faint praise logic)
I could go on and on. Is there some caricature here? Sure. But not much. You take all the arguments, you put them in a box and mix them up and you get this sort of thing. again (and I’ve been saying this for years) my problem isn’t with people liking a star (in this case Abhishek) or not or whatever. But the arguments just use different yardsticks for him. In other words you’re not much of an Abhishek fan but you only want him in a Guru or something. On the other hand the star you’re really a fan of you don’t mind in all kinds of stuff! When I say ‘you’ I mean it generically. And so the problem once again is the lack of an argument that has minimal integrity to it. Consciously or otherwise. of course it is cynical in many cases but that’s another matter. Ultimately films don’t do well or not based on what we discuss here or anywhere else but we can keep insisting on certain narratives unless things are that obvious one way or the other. If it’s PK at one end and BV at another obviously no one can ‘debate’ anything. And specially with Abhishek whether it was his Yuva through Guru phase or his terrible phase some years later or his multistarrer phase recently or now All is Well no matter what the situation the arguments presented are always a combination of some of the above (that I’ve outlined). Much as we see this in the trade also (referring to those who have a high media profile). Nahata maintains radio silence, Taran pretends to be fair and these days he generally doesn’t take positions against films as explicitly as he used to but nonetheless he still ignores some trailers and not others whereas otherwise he’s putting up posters and trailers of everything in sight. And so this still gets me to my old argument.. what is it about the Bachchan sign that still provokes so much anxiety?!
getting back to All is Well as far as I can tell the media has by and large responded positively to it (unlike folks here), the trailer seems to be getting attention (I don’t think every film gets 2m views within a short period of time.. for an Abhishek solo that ought to be more remarkable..). However if one is going to say things that make it sound like Game or something (i.e. when Abhishek was at his lowest point and wasn’t attracting any interest for anything) it does sound a bit odd. I;ll say this once more.. I’ve seen this sort of recycled logic for years online when it comes to him. Every other star in every other scenario is given more benefit of the doubt. Without exception. I don’t want to make this response more encyclopedic than it already is but I could offer lots of other examples too. I think it’s sometimes just easier to say a)I don’t like the star b)I don’t want him to do well. People often admit the former, rarely the latter. And then when it’s former they’re not satisfied with it, they have to make the star they don’t like ‘nothing’. Hence these dishonest or at least questionable arguments then come in handy. By the way I still haven’t take a call on AIW. I’m confident we’re looking at a hit here but can’t say beyond this. Why? Precisely because Abhishek hasn’t done a solo for a long time and it’s hard to say how this will open. Secondly while OMG was very successful and has had a shelf life Shukla nonetheless doesn’t have enough of a track record. And so saying more than this is hard. I would bet more if Abhishek were in a sounder position and/or the director were so. I do think however that this film might surprise many people.
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 7, 2015 at 11:04 AM
LOL.!
It is ridiculous to keep Rohit Shetty and Bazmee in the same bracket.
Rohit Shetty’s movies have the right mix of Comedy, Romance and Emotions ( BB, ATB and CE).
I hope that Umesh Shukla shows AIW to Rohit Shetty and consults with him before releasing it.
I liked the trailer but the Shanivar song is awful!!
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 8:04 PM
Was this big response meant for me as I said the trailor doesn’t seem to carry any buzz? I didn’t mean it as a slight to the movie. I honestly felt the trailor lacked punch.
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 10:45 PM
No, it was a larger point.. some of it might be relevant to your responses also. I wasn’t arguing with whether you liked the trailer or not or whether you think the film or not. I never debate much about these micro issues. I am much more interested in how these questions are ‘framed’ and I’ve argued with you before as well about this in different contexts. But with all due respect this is a fairly common response too… ‘hey I was only arguing saying I didn’t like the trailer’! In other words things are framed a certain way but when one is quizzed about it one can always make it a micro point saying what you just did. Having said that I’ll repeat that I was addressing a number of points (and folks) in that response. But I stand by what I’ve said to you in many contexts earlier as well. In other words I don’t find the framing credible and/or honest in many of these situations. And this has nothing to do with whether one likes a star or not, a trailer or not, whether one thinks a film will work or not.
Of course for the record you’ve still avoided answering anything specific (as always!). So for example in the past big films talk about getting 2 m views or 4 m views or whatever on online portals and this is celebrated in the media. The same is now done for AIW and you think ‘there’s nothing to see here’. And here’s my very logical question. Either you must say that youtube views don’t mean anything for any film (this too would be hard to argue on logical grounds since certain films clearly do better than others on this score and indicate some level of audience interest that’s greater in one case and lesser in another) or if you do think they mean something you must admit that AIW ran up an impressive number pretty fast. If you accept the latter though this raises other equally logical questions. If it’s an absolute top star you might say that the views don’t mean much and are only reflective of the star’s standing. However if it’s Abhishek where presumably you would not say he’s that kind of star then what explains these views? In other words if there’s no buzz about it and no interest how come these numbers are so high? What makes this all the more surprising is that to the extent Shukla has massy elements here and if one assumes that those massy elements attract more of a non-multiplex audience well then that very audience is underrepresented on youtube! In other words if it’s a Piku you could say that it’s all about multiplex audience interest which is mostly the kind showing up on youtube. But here when the film clearly does not look like a multiplex only deal and clearly has those Bazmee/Shetty-like elements or whatever it’s even more striking that an ‘online’ audience is interested in it to the degree that those numbers are so high. The trailer is at 2.6m at the moment, the char shanivaar song more or less had the same views as the recent Bajrangi song (both released the same day.. but one has Salman, one has Abhishek.. both were around 860k when I checked earlier). How did that happen? Unless you want to argue that char shanivaar is a much more popular song off the bat. Don’t think you want to argue that either! This is the kind of thing I argue about. Argue with some specifics. don’t just brake generic claims. A film doesn’t become a hit based on youtube responses. everyone knows that. On the other hand there must be some way of explaining these numbers. You can just say that no one liked the trailer, there’s no buzz, the song hasn’t appealed to anyone, etc etc and yet have no explanation for why those numbers are that high. There is no way of accounting for the latter without withdrawing some of those other claims. This is one example. I’ve offered others in the past when HNY released. I’ve argued about the box office as well with you. The problem always is that a number of statements can be made about things that are then contradictory when put together. And I’ve been seeing this kind of argument being used for years and years. It’s actually even a sense of deja vu for me to see you frame things the way others did maybe 10years ago or more. I had the same questions then as I do now and I can’t say I’ve got any convincing answers either way.
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 11:28 PM
I think you are over analysing here. I, for one, have never mentioned anything about any movies internet hits till now. I don’t even know how it is measured. Whether one person viewing the trailer 100 times is 100 view or is it 1 view as it only one person. Now that you provided me the link, I went ahead and checked the views of Bhajrangi Baijaan. It has only 1.9 mn views. And brothers have 6 mn views. But we know which movie will open better…So when the movie opens one will know if there was indeed a buzz about the movie or not.
Now a TWM trailer created lot of buzz, I could see genuine interest in people to see that movie…Hence the opening occupancies was expected. I do not the internet views of the trailor though and if there was a correlation But there was a buzz for that movie..And by that I mean among friends, acquaintances, blogs etc. The same amount of interest is yet to be evoked for AIW is what I feel. And I again base it only on my interactions with others in blogs, friends, acquaintances, bulletin boards…I maybe wrong. Maybe I am interacting with the wrong set of people. Its possible but surely my statement was meant to create so much strife…
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 11:44 PM
Actually the Bajrangi trailer was released on youtube by Eros and SKF (Salman Khan films) channels at the same time. Eros probably had it on their website as well. If you look at just those two sources the film has 5m views in 2 weeks. Brothers has close to 7m in 3. But Bajrangi as I said might have had other outlets as well. For example HNY did 4.5m in a short period of times over 3-4 outlets. So one youtube channel isn’t always the case with every film. AIW is close to 2.7m in 6 days. Again my point here isn’t about how it will open vis-a-vis other films but that this kind of brisk activity must be considered unusual all things considered (AIW). So yes I too don’t expect Brothers to open like Bajrangi but I also don’t expect it to open poorly. It could be that no one is really interested in watching AIW but they’re far more interested in watching the trailer than they are in many other cases. Possible I suppose! Are 100 people viewing the trailer 2.6m times? Maybe that’s possible too! By the way on Salman’s films remember the other point I made. It is entirely possible that Brothers and Bajrangi less of a multiplex spread which would explain similar youtube numbers and a much wider one elsewhere which again would not be represented on youtube. But also note how this film doesn’t seem to have created too much interest online. this might not mean much because again we’re measuring a multiplex sample online but certainly I don’t think any film of his other than Jai Ho was received in such lukewarm fashion by this crowd.
Incidentally the Tanu trailer got 8.3m views in 2 months. Again I don’t know whether that was the only channel. Eros might have shown it on their site as well. The other day Welcome Back was released but wasn’t available on youtube even after 24 hrs. It was however there on the Eros site. They put it up last yesterday I think and it just has 75k views so far (but these don’t include the eros numbers). So these things have to be factored in but Tanu in any case has a high enough number (I don’t know what the initial numbers were). On the other hand DDD on the Eros channel has 1.5m views in the same two months. If Eros released it on their site they must have done it for Tanu as well. One final example. ABCD2 has 7.6 m views in 2 months on the UTV channel. I’m not suggesting these views can be correlated with an opening in any simplistic sense because a number of other factors come into play. However by the same token such a brisk also means something. It is at the very least positive for the film. I’ve been saying all along that despite everything I can’t be certain about the film’s opening and what that number might look like. So I’m hardly ignoring the obvious. But AIW is certainly keeping pace with successful films and/or films expected to do well. At least in this limited youtube sense.
On a different note AIW might get lucky. Welcome Back is Sep 11 and now some rumors circulating about a Phantom delay (though Kabir Khan still says it’s the 28th).
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 11:50 PM
IMO the single biggest positive for AIW is its target audience. The family audience haven’t had much to rejoice for a long time and one of the reason TWM2 did so well was that it brought them out in droves. And sandwiching between Brothers and Phantom is not such a bad thing as none of those two movies are targeting the family audience. Drishyam comes much before AIW and Welcome back is atleast 2 weeks later. So if the WOM is positive it should do well.
LikeLike
July 7, 2015 at 11:55 PM
true but competition still cannot be ignored. Also family audience or not the film has to be liked. There’s no greater pass this demographic gives a film. Which is why few family films do as well as Tanu or Piku (at either end). Of course if any film has extraordinary WOM that’s another matter but that’s too high a bar on most days!
LikeLike
July 30, 2015 at 1:59 AM
http://www.koimoi.com/videos/welcome-backs-1st-song-tutti-bole-wedding-di-released/
LikeLike
August 11, 2015 at 1:58 AM
Absence of Akshay is clearly missing … John is fine as sidey roles or lead in small budget movies .. but not fit for main lead in big commercial movie like this …
LikeLike
August 11, 2015 at 1:58 AM
*Absence of Akshay is clearly visible
LikeLike
August 11, 2015 at 8:15 AM
Yakuza: John does seem like a misfit here. The other problem is Shruti Haasan, this doesn’t seem like her scene at all. To make matters worse they’ve mirrored the Feroz Khan angle by having Naseer show up here — the whole thing seems very stale…
LikeLike