A box-office slump

Ungli

What happens when the three Hindi releases of the week fail to impress at the box-office? Zid, Zed Plus and Ungli have not managed to ring the cash registers. With the main attraction of Zid — an erotic thriller directed by Vivek Agnihotri and produced by Anubhav Sinha — being Mannara (Priyanka Chopra’s cousin), the film has done okay business of the three films, said trade analyst N.P.Yadav as he added that normally out of 10 releases, only two films work. “But when it comes to sex-oriented films, the chances of them doing well increases. And thus, Zid has done better than Ungli — a comedy-drama directed by Rensil D’Silva, and Zed Plus, a political satire,” he said.
Trade analyst Vinod Mirani stated that Zid has finished second in a very poor week. “The film, where the producer and the director parted ways and unwanted, explicit scenes came in, failed to work. It has proved to be an unmitigated disaster managing to collect about Rs.3.5 crore,” he said.
Directed by Chandraprakash Dwivedi, Zed Plus, with limited screenings, has not been able to draw crowds, said Mirani. While Yadav echoed similar sentiments about Zed Plus, he also remarked that Emraan Hashmi’s commercial masala films are not welcomed the way his erotic, musical thrillers are. “They want to see him in that image all the time. Hence, Ungli too has not made a mark with the audience thus putting a dent on the collections,” said Yadav. Mirani agreed and stated, “Ungli has done poorly. It has managed to garner just about Rs.9.55 crore in the first weekend. The film is stale and suffers due to the poor title as well as the content. It is one of the poorest performers among Emraan Hashmi films.”
Talking about the occupancy, Gautam Dutta, CEO, PVR Cinemas, however, stated that of the Hindi releases this week, Zid had an occupancy of 25 per cent, Zed Plus had 18 per cent and Ungli fared marginally better at 30 per cent occupancy. “The Hollywood release especially The Penguins of Madagascar, at average 38 per cent occupancy, has been a clear winner, and in the next few weeks, we expect the trend to continue,” he said.

Days gone by

Mentioning the previous releases, Dutta stated that Rang Rasiya and Happy Ending, with limited number of shows, is still holding well, and Interstellar continues to enthrall audiences. “Like the previous week’s Hollywood release Dumb & Dumber To, there wasn’t much traction for The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part One. However, this was the number two Hollywood release this week. But Interstellar and Gone Girl both are attracting the audiences,” remarked Dutta.
Mirani adds up the list of the previous weeks; Saif Ali Khan-starrer Happy Ending was a washout at Rs.19.1 crore in its first week, Kill Dil added another Rs.2.75 crore to its collections in the second week to take its two week total to Rs.33.57 crore. Chaar Sahibzaade scored as the film has added Rs.8.2 crore in its third week (includes Punjabi and Hindi versions) to take its three week total to Rs.23.1 crore. And Ketan Mehta-directed Rang Rasiya has collected Rs.25 lakh in its third week to take its three week total to Rs.4.95 crore.

Regional fare

Of the regional films, Dutta said that it is the Atul Kulkarni-Priya Bapat-starrer Happy Journey that has created a lot of traction. The Marathi film has done extremely well in the Marathi belt, including Tier II and III cinemas, surprising everyone who expected the film to work only in metro cities. “Of the Telugu films, Rough and Rowdy Fellow are doing brisk business in Hyderabad. And the Mammootty-starrer, Malayalam film Varsham is also enjoying a good run in Kerala,” he said.

Future plans

Yadav is of the opinion that in the coming weeks, it would be Action Jackson that will surely get a very good opening. “It looks promising. It is a Prabhu Dheva film and has good music,” he said while adding that as for PK, expectations have always been very high when it comes to Rajkumar Hirani and Aamir Khan films. It goes without saying that their ventures will have a handsome opening and very good follow ups.
“Eyes are also set on December 12, 2014 for the release of superstar Rajinikant’s Lingaa,” summed up Dutta.

namita.nivas@expressindia.com