Diwali is one festival the film industry looks forward to with great enthusiasm. In fact, most producers try to line up their films in the Diwali week, hoping to generate good business during the next three/four weeks of vacations.
Unfortunately, the festival of lights did not spread brightness in the film industry this year. None of the four releases -- SSSSHHH..., PINJAR, INTEHA and RAJA BHAIYA -- could light the aisles and emerge winners at the domestic box-office.
What went wrong, did you ask. Everything!
First of all, the clash of four new films in one week is nothing but professional harakiri. I've often highlighted the advantages of having a solo or, at the most, two releases in one week. Let's not forget, the common man does not have the time, money or inclination to watch two or more films in one week. With the ticket rates soaring upwards at most theatres, the common man finds himself in a dilemma -- whether to watch the film on the big screen or wait for the pirated DVDs/VCDs.
Though most producers agree that it is professional suicide to have so many releases in one week, they really can't do much about it. Like I said, Diwali is considered to be the best period in the year vis-a-vis the business of new releases.
The opening of the four new films varied from average to dull to shockingly low at several centres. Not much was expected from RAJA BHAIYA, but the expectations from the remaining three films, especially PINJAR, were enormous.
PINJAR was widely acclaimed in preview shows and also during its screening at the 34th International Film Festival in Delhi. Unfortunately, the fabulous reviews it generated did not translate into excellent collections at the ticket window.
I remember telling Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi, director of PINJAR, to time the release some time later, not with three films in the same week. Besides, Ramzan was a few days away from the crucial Friday, I reminded him. That would affect its business largely.
If PINJAR would've been released without oppositions and much before/after the Ramzan period, the prospects would've been better for sure. However, a section of the film industry feels that the film has the potential to perk up with word of mouth publicity. Let's hope for the best!
The expectations from SSSSHHH... were manifold, mainly because [i] it was aggressively promoted prior to its release, [ii] the youth brigade in its cast was refreshing from the jaded look of some of our stars on the billboards and [iii] everyone was eager to know whether Tanisha could recreate the Kajol magic on the big screen.
Well, all three factors put together did attract attention, but the theatres screening this slasher film reported limited viewership. Its faulty script, excessive length [like PINJAR] and lack of a hit musical score went against it.
As for RAJA BHAIYA, well, what can expect from a film that has an archaic script, zestless performances, uninspiring music and a monotonous Govinda?
Vikram Bhatt has been lucky with newcomers/relative newcomers. KASOOR [Lisa Ray, Aftab Shivdasani] and RAAZ [Bipasha Basu, Dino Morea] resurrected the careers of the youngsters, besides raking in the moolah for its producer, Mukesh Bhatt, and the distributors.
Earlier FOOTPATH [starring new-find Emraan Hashmi] and now INTEHA [Ashmit Patel, Nauheed Cyrusi, Vidya Mallavde] came without a bang and left without a whimper. Vikram Bhatt's magic just didn't work in both the cases. Incidentally, both FOOTPATH and INTEHA have something in common, besides its makers -- they were hardly promoted prior to their release.
Not that aggressive promotion would've helped. INTEHA lacks the hammer-strong impact of Vikram Bhatt's KASOOR and RAAZ. Also, it lacked a good musical score to compliment the goings-on.
I remember Vikram Bhatt telling me something very interesting once. I'd like to share that with you today.
He said, every film-maker is a story-teller. He has various stories to narrate. On some nights, you may want the story-teller to go on, non-stop. But on other nights, you'd simply fall asleep even before the story has ended. The story-teller's magic wouldn't work sometimes.
That's what happened last Friday with INTEHA.
