Opinion How the pictures got small
Traditionally March is not a film friendly month,owing to the final examinations. This time round,a certain thing called the IPL also affected the business.
Traditionally March is not a film friendly month,owing to the final examinations. This time round,a certain thing called the IPL also affected the business. In fact last months film trends can best be summarised as the IPL ke side effects.
Heres a lowdown:
Cricket slays the box office
The effect of the IPL fever can be felt in a theatre near you. The collection of evening shows has been seriously affected. When you have the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni sharing space with Shah Rukh Khan,Preity Zinta,Shilpa Shetty and their various celebrity friends on a television screen in the comfort of ones home,then that is to be expected. The marriage of cricket and Bollywood continues with multiplexes telecasting the IPL matches live on the big screen. The digital distribution company,UFO Moviez,that holds the rights for IPL cinema screenings have tied up with 750 screens. Though the experiment has not quite yielded house full signs,the theatre owners are hopeful that the matches will pick momentum from the quarter finals.
LSD- the new cult in town
Dibakar Banerjees Love Sex Aur Dhoka is quite literally the new cult in town. The digitally shot-low budget-minus any big name- film managed to break through the IPL haze. Smartly marketed by producer Ekta Kapoor (yes she of the Tulsi-Parvati bandwagon),LSD is a multiplex money churner. The week one net haul from 489 screens is estimated around Rs 6.40 crore,which is almost double of its production cost. Banerjees unflinching portrayal of the dysfunctional and voyeuristic tendencies of the New Young India shocks,disturbs yet entertains. The city audience is lovin it.
Small films,no audience
While biggies like the Akshay Kumar-Deepika Padukone-Arjun Rampal starrer Housefull and Hrithik Roshans Kites have pushed their release to post-IPL,the advantage of empty screens was seized by the producers of a bevy of small films. And so we got a chance to sample films like Right Yaaa Wrong,Hide & Seek,Na Ghar Ke Na Ghaat Ke,Road Movie,Rokkk,Thanks Maa,Hum Tum Aur Ghost,Well Done Abba,Shaapit,Lahore,Mittal v/s Mittal. While these smallies got the screens,they could not get the audience in. Out of the lot,only Vikram Bhatts Shaapit (which marks the debut of singer Udit Narayans son,Aditya) created some ripples at the single screens and Shyam Benegals Well Done Abba found some critical appreciation.
Ajay Devgn- the new comic superstar
Surprise,surprise. He made a grand entry in Bollywood as an action star with the iconic bike split scene in Phool Aur Kaante,but the audience seems to like Ajay Devgn (yes thats how he spells it now) in comedies. The two time National Award winning actor (Zakhm and The Legend of Bhagat Singh) discovered his comic timing in pal Rohit Shettys Golmaal. With the surprise hit Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge? in which he co-starred with Konkona Sen Sharma and Paresh Rawal,Devgn completes a hat-trick of comedy blockbusters after Golmaal Returns and All The Best: Fun Begins. Theres more good news for Devgns fans. The actor starts shooting the third instalment of Golmaal titled Golmaal 3 in Goa soon. Kareena Kapoor is paired opposite Devgn while franchise regulars Arshad Warsi,Sharman Joshi,Tusshar Kapoor and Shreyas Talpade reprise their roles.
harneet.singh@expressindia.com
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