Another Thundering Flop For Vishal Bhardwaj
A macabre pattern of repeated failures has emerged in filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj’s career.While his films are praised to the skies by critics they make no money at the boxoffice.
Bhardwaj’s last film Rangoon lost close to Rs 35 crores for its co-producers Viacom 18, forcing the thriving company to apparently consider closing dowm until Sanjay Bhansali’s Padmaavat put Viacom 18 back on its feet.
You would think Vishal’s new release Pataakha with zero star-value would at least put Bhardwaj’s career back on the right track. But Pataakha opened to collections as shockingly low as 5 percent in some centres.
A personnel from a leading multiplex chain says, “Pataakha is a total washout.We’ve replaced shows of this film with SuiDhaga(the other release this week) in some centres. Vishal Bhardwaj is a brillaint director. But his film are only liked by critics..”
Film critic Raja Sen who is a diehard fan of Bhardwaj’s cinema, says, “Masterpiece cinema and boxoffice receipts have never shared a direct correlation.Anyway India has no credibly audited boxoffice figures.As for Pataakha it is clearly a low-budget film without any stars, so the absence of a big opening did not surprise anyone.”
Adds trade analyst Atul Mohan, “Pataakha was planned so as to have not such a traditional wide release .Instead it was a limited release. Released in little over 750 screens, the film has shown a marginal upward trend over the first weekend. Day 1 was 90 lakhs, day 2 was 1.4 cr and day 3 was 2 cr (early estimates). Limited, release, a non-star-cast will face the test from in the coming week…October 2 Gandhi Jayanti was a big holiday . But the film showed no upward trend. The real test begins from next week for this one which has already registered glowing reviews.”
Pataakha stars two semi-newcomers Sanya Malhotra and Radhika Madan as two warring sisters in a rugged grimy rustic setting. This is another setback for Sunil Grover struggling to establish his own identity after his split with Kapil Sharma.
Pataakha is Bhardwaj’s fifth flop in a row. His earlier works 7 Khoon Maaf and Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mandola were resounding flops. Even the highly regarded Haidar did not make any profits.
