Bollywood heads for a crowded box office

The earlier Cricket World Cup and now IPL-4,have forced several small budget films to arrive together,after their releases were postponed in the months of February and March.

Last Friday (April 29) saw the release of as many as 11 films in India — with six Bollywood films,including ‘I Am’,’Challo Dilli’ and ‘Shor in the City’,four Hollywood releases and two dubbed films. This created chaos at the box office,with each scrambling to hold on.

While the coming Friday is still in tolerance zone with the likes of ‘Luv Ka The End’ and ‘Haunted-3D’ clashing with each other,the real problem will resurface a week later with multiple films vying for audience attention. On May 13,there are as many as four films releasing. Ekta Kapoor is releasing her low-budget affair ‘Ragini MMS’ on May 13 along with Amol Gupte’s ‘Stanley Ka Dabba’. With her active promotion and a good dose of sex,horror and paranormal she is likely to win the battle at the box office.

Nana Patekar’s ‘Shagird’ and Tusshar Kapoor-Amrita Rao’s love story ‘Love U… Mr Kalakaar!’ have no great hype surrounding them and might go unnoticed.

The situation turns worse on the next weekend,May 20. There is such a huge crowd out there that even getting a good screen count and show timings would come at a bargain.

‘Pyaar Ka Punchnama’ is literaly a love obituary while ‘404’ is a horror flick. The other releases of the week include ‘Bhindi Baazaar Inc’,’Bol’,’Chillar Party’,’Kashmakash’ and Pankaj Kapoor starrer ‘Happi’ but if they decide to postpone their release they will again be faced with a packed May 27.

Vipul Shah’s releasing ‘Kucch Luv Jaisaa’ and Subhash Ghai is already gearing up to release ‘Cycle Kick’ and ‘Love Express’. This is not all as another small film called ‘My Husband’s Wife’ has joined the fray on the same date.

It is a fight for the best slot available and if at all people are looking at moving around their release dates,a resolution has to be arrived at pretty quickly.