I’ve always felt that the viewer decides to watch a film or skip it, soon after he/she has watched the first promo of the film. Of course, everything boils down to the content eventually, once the film releases. The pre-release hype of WHAT’S YOUR RAASHEE? was not too strong and one of the reasons was the not-too-exciting promos.
Yet, Ashutosh Gowariker – the brand – coupled with its solo release status and a 4-day long weekend [Monday was Dassera holiday] were three key factors that could prove advantageous for the film. And the first two factors helped the film fetch an encouraging start at select plexes of ‘A’ class centres. At several screens, the opening ranged from average to dull.
Released on a fairly limited scale and in limited shows [thanks to its length], the numbers weren’t expected to be huge, but one did expect the 4-day opening weekend to be robust. The film performed best on Sunday and was expected to be 80% to 90% of Sunday on Monday, since Monday was a holiday.
Surprisingly, the business showed a decline on Monday, while Tuesday, the first working day of the week, witnessed a steep fall in business. At places, even lower than Friday. The running time of approx. 3.20 hours has come in for sharp criticism within and outside the industry and although the distributors decided to trim the film by removing three songs on Saturday, it didn’t help, since the word had spread by then.
As things stand today, WHAT’S YOUR RAASHEE? has under-performed in the domestic market.
