Dulquer’s Debut, Anubhav’s Political Statement, Aishwarya’s Comeback All Open Poorly

It’s been a very poor week at the boxoffice even for Hollywood , what with the lavish lush sumptuous musical Mamma Mia Here We Go Again opening to near-empty theatres across India

It’s the Hindi releases we need to worry about.All the three releases this week Akarsh Khurana’s Karwaan, Atul Manjrekar’s Fanney Khan and Anubhav Sinha’s Mulk have opened poorly. Mulk is the strongest among the weak trio.

In some places the collections for these films are so low that they seem to mock at the USPs this week’s releases.

Says a source fron a leading multiplex chain in Mumbai, “The collections are poor for all three films and they show no inclination to get better. Mulk got outstanding reviews.And the collections have improved slightly but not enough for us to get hopeful. We are now looking hopefully at Kamal Haasan’s Vishwaroopam next week. John Abraham’s Satyamev Jayate and Akshay Kumat’s Gold for Republic day to redeem the boxoffice.

Trade analyst Atul Mohan rues the release of so many films simultaneously. “Sad….In this mad clash the attention gets divided.The reviews were mixed.All the releases of this Friday deserved space which they couldn’t get. All come from big banners and needed time to grow. The ticket pricing also needs to be categorized here onwards. Maybe with two big titles Satyamev Jayate and Gold clashing in less than a week the audience must have thought to save money for it and catch these films online in few weeks.”

Trade expert Amod Mehra feels it is lack of star value that did all the three films in. “All three films though promising had no star value as such plus all three failed to create a buzz before release.It once again proved that three is no company, it’s a smothering crowd. The audience will now venture to see only that film which has got maximum critical acclaim.”

Be as it might, in a year cluttered with successes this week has proven to be a bummer. Better luck next time.