The August 15 clash: Trade predicts win for Stree 2

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For a flop-infested industry, it sure is a crazy move—releasing three big movies on Independence Day, which this time falls on a Friday. The three films are Stree 2, the action thriller Vedaa and the romantic comedy, Khel Khel Mein. But crazier than this is the fact that a total of 10 films plus are hitting the screen across India! These include the South and the foreign films. Double iSmart, a Telugu film, is also released in a Hindi version.

What will happen in these days when a family outing to a movie hall can cost upwards of Rs. 2000? And people need that vital ‘Theatrical Quotient’ (TQ), not merely the Entertainment Quotient, Emotional Quotient and Intelligence Quotient, with the last mentioned being of obviously least importance wherever entertaining cinema is made around the globe.

But post-pandemic, it is the TQ that has become the most important—the conviction of a ticket-buying consumer to go and watch a film in the theatres in the eight-week gap before every film streams. And that is what actually counts!

Veteran exhibitor and distributor Raj Bansal, who has experience of cinema and the trade angle over decades, says, “I don’t think it is a clash at all, in Hindi cinema at least! I see a one-way street!” He goes on to explain, “I think that there is no competition to Stree 2. Not only was the first film a big hit in 2018, and people are waiting for it, but this year, the audiences have already watched Munjya in the horror-comedy genre and that is working very well!” Incidentally, both these films have the same producers and banner. Interestingly, the David that Stree was in 2018 had crushed the Goliath that was Yamla Pagla Deewana Phir Se, which was its co-release then!

Bansal predicts a Rs. 20 crore-plus opening for Stree 2, based on all these factors. Next in line, he says, will be the action thriller, Vedaa, featuring John Abraham, for which he predicts a Rs. 6 to 7 crore opening. “The action in the trailer looks interesting, and John is back after a long time,” he says.

And while he gives no importance in the Hindi belt to Double iSmart, featuring Ram Pothineni and Sanjay Dutt, he does state that the disproportionately high number of releases will lead to divided business. “Plus, the lesser movies will not get sufficient theatres or screens,” he tells me.

Why does he give Akshay Kumar’s film the lowest position (he predicts a Rs. 3.5 to 4 crore opening)? Is it because of his track-record in recent times? “Yes, in a way. Instead of merely releasing multiple movies in a year, Akshay should mentally introspect and fathom why his best movies worked. Maybe he can offer to co-produce sequels of his best or biggest past hits. But he should analyze why those films worked and why his recent crop did not.”

Ajay Devgn too, he feels, is regrettably going the Akshay way of having too many releases. “Shaitaan did well, but Maidaan came too soon after it, and so did Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha,” says Bansal.

Clearly, times have changed since big-name stars like Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Shashi Kapoor. Amitabh Bachchan or Govinda did five or more films in a single year. Dharmendra, for example, did 10 films in 1987, of which one was the biggest hit of the year, and five more were successes or hits. And ironically enough, there were no dates considered premium until 25 years back or so. A normal date in October 1974 saw four big releases, three of which went on to be big hits (again including the biggest hit of the year) and one was a success.

This Independence Day, therefore, all that the beleaguered-by-its-own-follies Hindi film industry must pray for is freedom from flops, even if it has never fought for it in the right way—until now, at least.