The trade is baffled. It has no reasons to justify the poor advance booking of Karan Johar’s Jugjugg Jeeyo which opens today (24th June). As of 11 p.m. yesterday (23rd June), only 49,000 tickets of the multi-starrer had been sold for the first day (Friday) in the three best and biggest national multiplex chains (PVR, Inox and Cinepolis). The corresponding figure for the first weekend was 95,000 tickets. To understand better, it would not be out of place to compare this figure with the advance booking figures of past films. A total of 96,000 tickets for Friday and 1,62,000 tickets for the first weekend had been sold in advance at the three national multiplex chains till Thursday night 11 o’clock for the next day’s release, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2. Each ofRRR (dubbed) and Dabangg 3 had sold 1.05 lakh tickets in advance for the first Friday at the same three multiplex chains. A total of 1.10 lakh tickets of Judwaa 2, and 1.15 lakh tickets of Simmba had been sold for the first day, till 11 p.m. of the previous day.
Frankly, nobody in the trade expected this kind of dull advance booking. Can one attribute any reason/s to this dull scenario?
Anil Kapoor has never been known to be a hero whose films take an initial. This was the case when he was young and played the main lead in films, and this continues to be the case today when he is playing central character roles too. Varun Dhawan’s films more often than not commanded a good initial but that must definitely have changed after his last release, Coolie No. 1. Both, the film and Varun’s performance in Coolie No. 1, were so disliked by the public that people seem to have been put off by the actor. Sometimes, one wrong film can have a disastrous effect on an actor’s future films. Coolie No. 1, which was premiered on OTT, was that wrong film in Varun Dhawan’s career, the price of which he is paying along with his producers of Jugjugg Jeeyo. Till he delivers a successful film, his starrers may not generate the desired heat at the box-office unless, of course, other things about the film work to its advantage.
Even all of the above may have been overlooked by the paying public if the promotion of Jugjugg Jeeyo had been outstanding. Unfortunately, after the exciting first trailer of the film, the tempo could not be maintained. Not that the producers left any stone unturned to market the film, but everything that followed the first trailer fell short of expectations. Instead of the heat for the film building up, the reverse started happening. Personally, I feel, the makers erred in showing the point of Anil Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor’s marriage being on the rocks, in the first trailer. And the reasons are dual: firstly, there was too much of divorce-divorce in the trailer; secondly, although the point of Varun Dhawan and Kiara Advani’s impending divorce comes quite early on in the film, the point of Anil and Neetu’s divorce comes later AND it is meant to be a shock, not just for Varun but equally for the audience watching the film. Showing this angle in the trailer robbed it of the shock value.
Anyway, now that the advance booking figures are out, what needs to be seen is how much the first day closes at. The trade is waiting with bated breath as much for the public reports of Jugjugg Jeeyo as for the first day’s net collection total.