From Bad To Worse!

It was a soggy weekend. Or let me put it this way: It's the lull before the storm.

Two weeks from now, the festive period is expected to boost movie business, with three biggies [KYON KI…, GARAM MASALA, SHAADI NO. 1] competing with one another to attract eyeballs and footfalls at movieplexes.

But, as things stand today, the business has touched the ebb. And the poor openings of the last few weeks' releases bear testimony to the fact. The new release, KOI AAP SA, didn't boost the business or morale [of the industry] either!

Much was expected from Ekta Kapoor's latest endeavor KOI AAP SA, partly because it happens to be the next release after the immensely successful KYAA KOOL HAI HUM. But the dismal opening response to KOI AAP SA proved yet again that no one knows what's playing in the viewer's mind. No one knows what he'd watch or skip.

KOI AAP SA was released on Wednesday [Dashehra], instead of Friday, at several screens, but despite the festive mood, the occupancy at movieplexes screening the film was shockingly low [10% to 15% at some shows]. KOI AAP SA was a complete non-starter and the word of mouth was so negative, it fell even before it could rise on Friday.

I wouldn't like to blame the audiences for not venturing to movieplexes these days. First the shraddh period, then Navratri, followed by the holy month of Ramadan and now school-college examinations… the business was expected to be low-key anyways. But what has added to the woes is that practically all recent releases have been most unappealing.

Clearly, the business has gone from bad to worse!

BOOM TIME?

Starting Diwali, there's going to be no respite till February 2006 as far as releases are concerned. If you go through the release schedule that we update every week, you'd agree that the flow of biggies is unstoppable right till February next year.

Looking at the release schedule, all I'd like to tell the producers is to avoid clashing with four/five films in a week. Its okay if two biggies release alongside, but four, five and six releases is professional harakiri. It's time we learnt from our past mistakes!

THIS WEEK, LAST YEAR

Weekend: October 15-17, 2004]

With several inconsequential films hitting the marquee and none of the earlier releases having the capacity to sustain, the slack phase continued its uninterrupted sprint at the box-office. And with the holy month of Ramadan having begun, a sizeable section of moviegoers were staying away from cinema halls.

The three new releases -- DIL BECHARA PYAAR KA MAARA, BHOLA IN BOLLYWOOD and HATYA THE MURDER [a much-delayed film starring Akshay Kumar and Varsha Usgaonker] -- didn't do much to uplift the sagging morale of the film industry. Not much was expected anyways!

At the rate films were flopping, it was more of film industry bechari hit ki maari.