The Cricket World Cup Season is going on full throttle in England and Wales and in spite of inclement weather, the tickets for the matches are flying like hot cakes as fans from India, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have gathered together to witness all the great teams battling it out for the honours.
Cricket is no less than a religion in India and this revives the question: will fans quit their TV screens to watch films on the big screen? We take the query to experts in various streams of filmmaking...
Mahendra Bohra, producer, Hume Tumse Pyaar Kitnna shares, “I am releasing my film in the World Cup season and I don’t think there is any threat for the footfalls in the theatres screening my film. Fans who love films will come into the theatres to watch a film and fans who like to watch cricket will watch cricket.
Films like Article 15 have been released in the World Cup season and have done well at the box office. So I am confident about my film doing well at the box office in spite of the ongoing cricket World Cup season.”
Atul Mohan, trade analyst and Editor, Complete Cinema, opines, “I don’t think the World Cup matches will affect the film box office collections in any way as evident from the Rs 200 crore club business of Kabir Singh and the success of Article 15.
However, cricket lovers will only watch the matches which are important like those involving India, Australia, England, etc and the fans of films will definitely throng the theatres to see their favourite movie stars and good content cinema. Big budget films are certainly not facing a threat from the ICC Cricket World Cup.”
Deepak Mukut, producer-distributor, expresses, “I don’t think the ongoing World Cup cricket season will hamper or be a deterrent to the business at the box office as movie-goers will definitely go to watch films.
However, yes, incessant rains will hamper the box office collections as cine-goers will find it difficult to make it to the theatre and watch their favourite stars in action. But seeing the good business of Kabir Singh and Article 15 one can rest assured that good films will do good business at the box office.
Vivek Agnihotri, director, Tashkent Files, avers, “I don’t think cricket is any competition to films because films are a mass medium and now with the bumper success of Kabir Singh and Article 15 going on strong at the box-office it is quite evident that cricket is not going to hamper the box office collections in any way.”
Iyengar of Golden Ratio Films, explains, “We produced and exhibited the English film ‘The Extraordinary Journey of a Fakir’ successfully and had recorded good collections all over in spite of the ongoing Cricket World Cup.
Yes, the chances of competition are less but if India makes it to the semis then the semifinal and final matches will have huge volumes of cricket fans glued to their TV sets and this will definitely affect the collections of the new films released all over.”
So the debate continues and there is no certain conclusion as to whether the film business will hamper the business of films released during the ongoing Cricket World Cup season.
The fact remains that cricket is the ultimate crowd-puller and even if some films like Kabir Singh have done exceedingly well, one swallow doesn’t make a summer. The ongoing cricket season does affect the movie business and big films lined up like Super 30 might just see a dent in their collections.
