It was bound to happen. And it did. The new Marvel super-hero epic Captain America: Civil War, has swept aside all of this week’s Hindi releases this week. Jasmine Moses D’Souza’s One Night Stand, the Sharman Joshi horror film 1920 London and the late Rajesh Pillai’s thriller Traffic have all opened to miserable box-office figures.
Only, last week’s Hindi release Baaghi is still going strong. But, clearly Captain America is the film that has captured the nation’s imagination.
Says Roshan Singh, a leading distributor-exhibitor of Bihar, “It’s not just doing well in the metros, but also in the smaller cities. In Patna, it has opened to full houses in both English and Hindi, while, this week’s Hindi releases have been greeted with near-empty theatres.”
Trade analyst Atul Mohan, “The flavour of the season is Hollywood. The Jungle Book has set the bar so high that we have to pull up our socks if we want to compete with Hollywood this season. Captain America, another kids’ action hero’s film comes immediately after The Jungle Book and even before the fever of The Jungle Book had settled down.
Atul Mohan feels that the Hindi releases this week have not let themselves or the audience down. “It is true that Captain America has a registered fantastic opening from North to South and from East to West. We can’t blame our films released this week, as Traffic is a good film and even 1920 and One Night Stand are passable fares.”
Atul Mohan feels that the new Hindi releases are going through a rough phase. “It’s just an unfavourable phase. But, Baaghi did exceptionally well in the week it got for itself, and is doing reasonably good in second weekend even with Captain America breathing down its neck.”
