As if the Coronavirus threat was not bad enough, we now have news of new variants of the virus every other week. Of course, some of the news are fake, some are genuine. Even the genuine news gets tainted and painted in different hues till it reaches different people. The WhatsApp university and the media are leaving no stone unturned — to warn the public and also to scare the daylights out of them. Consequently, the already frightened humans get weekly or bi-weekly doses of further shocks. Many then refrain from venturing out of their homes. Cinema, of course, becomes one of the biggest casualties because of the fear in people’s minds.
Given this background, is it even fair to pronounce judgement on a film, based almost completely on the opening it manages to get? Definitely not! Sooryavanshi, the first major release after the second lockdown was lifted (wholly at places, partially at others), of course, took a flying start, but all films released after that have not taken impressive initials. The trade has been so used to declaring a film with great expectations attached to it, a flop if it fails to open well that it continues to do so even now, in the new-normal scenario.
Take, for instance, last week’s Antim. It opened to dull houses at many places. Since old habits die hard, the trade people lost no time, on the day of release itself, in giving their verdict that the film was a flop. However, collections of the Aayush Sharma starrer — in which Salman Khan plays a supporting role — picked up on the first day from the afternoon and evening shows. And the first weekend was pretty satisfying, commercially speaking. So were the collections of the weekdays! But the ‘know-alls’ had already dubbed the film unsuccessful, based merely on the unimpressive start. Of course, many in the trade did so because they counted Antim as a Salman film which it wasn’t. Its budget is not the budget of a Salman starrer, its hero (negative) is Aayush Sharma, the central character of the story is not Salman but Aayush. Ultimately, collections of the week — as against collections of the morning and pre-noon shows on the opening day — proved the hasty verdict of the trade people wrong. It is now established that for its budget, Antim is a comfortable plus fare.
The same thing seems to be happening in the case of this week’s release, Tadap. The initial shows today (December 3) were very ordinary, especially in single-screen cinemas. That’s when many in the trade pronounced their judgement — that the film was a flop. One doesn’t know how the film will ultimately turn out to be at the box-office, but it must be said that collections are showing an upward growth, and collections in the multiplexes are far better than in single-screen cinemas. In all probability, Tadap will also prove to be a success story.
So what lesson do Antim and Tadap box-office collections teach the trade? That the trade should refrain from declaring the fate of a film basis the opening show’s collections. Let us just accept that people are wary of coming to the cinemas even now, but they are willing to venture out if the reports of a film are good. In other words, the public is willing to brave it out to the cinemas provided the film is worth their risk. Fair enough!
If we understand the above simple logic, we will refrain from pronouncing every slow-starting film a flop and instead wait for at least the entire day or first weekend to pass.
Times are terrible. Films are not always that. Good films can also sometimes — in these times — start with terribly poor box-office collections. The old formula of predicting the fate of a film on the basis of its initial, does not apply now. At least not till the old normal returns.