It's a practice to follow the 'in' thing. If bell-bottoms are back in vogue, you witness a sea of youngsters dressed in bell-bottoms. If longer side-locks are considered hep-n-happening, if a particular brand of car is a hot favorite, if a particular destination is on the 'must-see-n-visit' list, it's normal to follow the trend. So, on introspection, one shouldn't really grudge if a majority of film-makers in Mumbai feel that comedies is what our junta wants to watch.
But I'd like to repeat the question: Is the genre foolproof? Recall the fate of comedies released in 2008. A majority of them went completely unnoticed. Why, in a couple of cases, the exhibitors were forced to cancel the shows due to lack of audience.
Let's talk of MERE BAAP PEHLE AAP. On face-value, everything seems perfect. Priyadarshan has a string of hits behind him. Akshaye Khanna is back in form after RACE. The visuals [that one gets to see in the promos] are arresting. The supporting cast [Paresh Rawal, Om Puri and Rajpal Yadav] promise to transport you to ha-ha-land. But, like the adage goes, never judge a book by its cover.
MERE BAAP PEHLE AAP isn't Priyan's best effort, though Priyan did mention on my show that he got this feedback [it's his finest effort yet] from those who watched the film. Agreed, the original film was a huge success, but you can't expect the remake to be as successful.
Talking of business, MERE BAAP PEHLE AAP had a shaky Friday, a good-average Saturday and a positive Sunday, but Monday onwards, its business has been on the downslide. For the producers, sure, it's a profitable venture since they've sold the film at good prices. But will the distributors recover the investment? Seems unlikely, since the appreciation is missing.
The second release, SUMMER 2007, stumbled and fumbled on Day 1 itself. I have a problem with this title. Does it signify the essence of the movie? With a title like that, can you ever guess what the story revolves around? Not that a suitable title would've changed its fortunes.
Its box-office performance has been extremely poor and though the week hasn't ended yet, my hunch is it would rank amongst the lowest openers of this year.
