Back to back release of Andhadhun and Badhaai Ho: Would better planning ensure bigger Box-Office collections for Ayushmann Khurrana?

By Himesh Mankad -

September 29, 2018 - 11:43 AM IST

The month of October will see the release of two films starring Ayushmann Khurrana in lead i.e. Andhadhun and Badhaai Ho. While the former is a thriller directed by Sriram Raghavan, the latter is a social comedy directed by Amit Sharma. This is not the first time when two Ayushmann Khurrana films are releasing in a short span of time, as in the past too there have been consecutive releases for the star, examples being Hawaizaada and Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Bareilly Ki Barfi and Shubh Mangal Savadhan.

Back to back release of Andhadhun and Badhaai Ho: Would better planning ensure bigger Box-Office collections for Ayushmann Khurrana?

Hawaizaada released on January 30, 2015, and after the disastrous performance of the film at the Box-Office, the marketing team of YRF decided to keep a low profile on Dum Laga Ke Haisha and released the film without any promotions on February 27, 2015. The film opened to a lukewarm response at the ticket window; however the positive word of mouth helped it emerge a major success at the Box-Office. While Hawazaada raked in approximately Rs 3.53 crore, Dum Laga Ke Haisha collected Rs 30.19 crore in India. The initial of second film here got impacted because the first one, which commanded an extremely negative word of mouth, was still fresh in audience mind.

The same incident got repeated again in 2017 as two films i.e. Bareilly Ki Barfi and Shubh Mangal Savadan released in a span of merely 2 weeks. And the situation here was even worse given the fact that both the films were appealing to the same set of audience i.e. families. By the time Bareilly Ki Barfi entered in its third week, the audience got the option of watching another Ayushmann Khurrana film in the similar space with a subject far quirky than the first film. Both films proved to be successful, however one can’t deny the fact that the two had the potential to do better had there been a better planning in terms of release date. Overexposure along with overlapping of audience are the two things that happen when the films are released in a short span of time. Bareilly Ki Barfi raked in Rs 34.55 crore as compared to Rs 43.11 crore by Shubh Mangal Savadhan.

This year again sees the release of Andhadhun and Badhaai Ho in a span of merely 14 days. The factor working in favour of this scenario is the fact that both of them are poles apart in terms of subject and target audience; however the negative factor in this scenario is that the trend of Andhadhun might be cut short by Badhaai Ho the third week on-wards. This would again be the case of overlapping audience because the cinema goers will get a choice of watching either of the two films from the third week. There is also a possibility of the audience deciding on watching just one of the two films featuring the actor, which in a way impact’s the business of the film that a chunk of audience might have watched had they not been given a choice. Andhadhun is slated to release on October 5, 2018 whereas Badhaai Ho releases on October 19, 2018.

Ayushmann Khurrana has an extremely balanced filmography with topical films like Vicky Donor, Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Bareilly Ki Barfi and Shubh Mangal Savadhan doing well at the ticket window. The actor has associated himself with content cinema, and his next two films fall right into his zone of cinema. We just hope that the talented actor sits down with the film producers on the release of his films and ensures proper spacing between them from hereon.

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