They say, pre-release promotion of a film is very important. And yet, Munjya, with not much promotion, is doing well at the box-office. Can you explain?
– MUNJYA is an exception rather than the rule. The producers of the film did not have any star face to promote their film and hence decided to release it with less promotion, hoping that it would open well and they would then pump up the publicity if the audience gave the film their thumbs up. That’s exactly what happened. The content was so compelling that the film not only opened well but also picked up in the weekend. Incidentally, the ticket prices were brought down on the first day itself. That itself can be counted as great promotion for the film. By the way, horror films have inherent power to attract the public even with minimum promotion.
Since Munjya has a very regional flavour as the belief that an unmarried adolescent boy can become a munjya (spirit) if he dies within ten days of his mundan ceremony exists in parts of Maharashtra only, how did the makers not make it in Marathi?
– Credit to the producer for making the film in Hindi in spite of having a subject with a regional flavour and thereby expanding the reach of the subject. It was, perhaps, for this reason that Dinesh Vijan gave the reins of direction in the hands of a Marathi film director, Aditya Sarpotdar. And must say, Sarpotdar has made a film with universal appeal while retaining the local flavour of the subject.
Why did it take so many years for South film producers to realise that they should dub their films in Hindi too and release the dubbed Hindi version simultaneously with the original version?
– The South producers realised that dubbing the films simultaneously in Hindi was a good business proposition after the South heroes became household names in the rest of India, thanks to the Hindi dubbed versions of South films doing well on satellite television channels. The old South films were released (in Hindi) on satellite channels after several months of the release of their original versions.