As expected, none of the new Hindi releases have managed to bring in any sort of numbers that would have placed them on a comfortable situation to aim for even a fair weekend. With eight films clashing with each other, the biggest trouble was always going to be adequate showcasing. This is what exactly happened, what with Dobaara - See Your Evil, Dear Maya, Hanuman Da Damdaar, A Death in the Gunj, Sweetiee Weds NRI, Mirror Game - Ab Khel Shuru, Flat 211 and Bachche Kachche Sachche taking on each other. No wonder, it was near impossible for majority of these films to even release well in theaters.
Only a few films like Dobaara - See Your Evil, Dear Maya and Hanuman Da Damdaar found some sort of shows coming their way. However, here too the screen count was lesser than the likes of Hindi Medium and Sachin - A Billion Dreams which are holdover releases. Even the combined collections of these films were less than 1 crore which tells the tale.
In terms of critical acclaim, Dear Maya has found better traction and Manisha Koirala's act has been appreciated. However, since there wasn't much of an awareness en route release and now the shows are pretty uneven as well, one waits to see if there would be some sort of turnaround. Dobaara - See Your Evil had bit of a face value with Huma Qureshi returning after Jolly LLB 2. That didn't translate into numbers though and then reviews were largely mixed as well. Animation film Hanuman Da Damdaar hasn't been hailed to the skies either but then there may just be some traction on weekdays due to summer holidays.
All in all, this could well turn out to be yet another week for Bollywood when the report card would see the color red against most of the new releases. Thankfully, holdover releases may manage to bring in some numbers to keep the theaters going.
