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.