Last week in Mumbai, some apostles of peace from various faiths gathered to praise filmmakers, Aamir Khan and Rajkumar Santoshi for Batwara 1947.
They chorused that this Sunny Deol starrer that preaches religious tolerance and secularism is the need of the war-hour. However, their speech came too late in the day and fell on deaf ears. Batwara 1947 has sunk; it’s lying like the Titanic at the bottom of the three oceans surrounding India. Since it’s release on August 14, this partition-drama has managed a disastrous collection of ₹34.77 cr. Sad but true, that even a film that has its heart in the right place, may not necessarily get public patronage.
Awarapan 2 puts Emraan back on the hit map
Emraan Hashmi’s Awarapan 2 on the other hand hit a century. It has just breached the ₹130 cr mark with ₹132.14 cr and is likely to add to its tally until the release of Yash’s Toxic. This is Emraan’s entry into the prestigious ₹100-cr club and suddenly the Phoenix has risen from the ashes of several mid-level box-office performers.
Toxic will allegedly go for a road block
Yash’s Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups, directed by the audacious Malayalam actress turned filmmaker, Geetu Mohandas comes mid-week. This film releases on August 26 to capitalise on the nationwide Onam and Eid-ul-Nabi public holiday. Toxic releasing simultaneously in six languages including Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kanada and Malayalam has allegedly planned a road block! If this happens, some previous releases will see their box office collections wiped out. And, some others will witness diminishing returns.
7 Dogs with Sanjay and Salman is a dud
Sanjay Dutt, Salman Khan, Monica Bellucci, Ahmed Ezz, Karim Abdel Aziz and Martin Lawrence amongst others got together for an international movie outing called 7 dogs. This Saudi Arabia offering directed by Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah was atrociously dubbed in Hindi for a home audience. Hearing Bellucci mouth her Hindi lines with the most awkward lip sync was easily hilarious. Collecting somewhere between a paltry ₹11 lakhs in 3 days, this one didn’t have an ice-cube’s chance in hell of surviving its stay in Indian cinemas.
Hollywood’s dominance continues
From July 30 until now, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has an uninterrupted run and is nearing the ₹500 cr mark in India. As of now, its tally stands at approximately ₹488.90 cr. Of the new English releases - Insidious: Out of the Further collected almost ₹9.47 cr. And, Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie got a collection of ₹2.05 cr. Mutiny, starring Jason Statham, collected approximately ₹33 lakhs in two days in India. These are small numbers but looking at the collections of some Indian movies, this is commendable.
Disclaimer: (FPJ has referred to leading trade portals and its own reliable trade sources for the box-office figures mentioned above. We maintain that these are authentic, estimated figures, collected without bias. FPJ leaves a margin for correction because off late, Bollywood cinema collections have reportedly become “ambiguous”. Filmmakers/exhibitors/distributors reportedly depend on corporate bookings, their own “ticket-purchases” and augmented sales through paid mediums. All collections are India nett in INR.)
