It's a sad day for small films. The Ghazi Attack, Irada
and Running Shaadi which do have commendable actors backing these projects have
opened up to empty theatres. On the other hand, Akshay Kumar's Jolly LLB 2
still is running high at the ticket windows.
Just like every Friday morning, I headed out to
a few western suburban theatres to check how the audiences react to the week's
releases. But this morning, I was in for a big shock.
Image Source: twitter/foxstarindia
Surprisingly, most of the theatres had not kept either of the three films for
the morning 9 o' clock show. A few of them even cancelled their
morning shows due to lack of audience.
Most theatres had given these new releases the matinee
slot in the afternoon, which is sort of the lowest crowd pulling time zone in
the day. So I decided to wait a bit more and have a look at the audiences
turning up for the afternoon shows. But alas! I was still left aghast.
Cinepolis (Andheri) had 3 people as audience for Running
Shaadi, while PVR Icon (Andheri) had just 13.
For The Ghazi Attack, the same theatres had an audience count of 23 and 39
respectively.
Calling up the ticket counters of a few other suburban theatres, I found out
that the shows there as well were having an equally dry run.
Irada on it's front didn't have a show in any suburban theatre till the early
evening slot (4-4:30), which itself justifies that how the theatres had
sidelined this film too.
I couldn't fathom the fact as to why this was happening
as both The Ghazi Attack and Irada had received good reviews from almost
everywhere. Running Shaadi too had received mixed reviews, but that too didn't
warrant this type of a wash out.
Image Source: twitter/IradaEntLLP, runningshaadi & theghaziattack
"Audiences want to watch mainly Jolly LLB 2, and
that's why we are running the new releases in the afternoon shows, and the other
non-prime slots," said a person from the ticket counter of one of the
theatres (on grounds of anonymity). The person went on to say that the theatre
owners have to look onto their business aspect and see as to which movie would
draw more footfalls, and thus they are compelled to such decisions.
For all those who've come in late, The Ghazi Attack
features a stellar cast consisting of Kay Kay Menon, Om Puri, Rana Daggubatti,
Rahul Singh and Taapsee Pannu. It's a film on one of the most popular sea
battles of the Indian Navy. Irada stars Naseeruddin Shah, Arshad Warsi,
Sagarika Ghatge, Divya Dutta and many others. Running Shaadi too has Amit Sadh
and Taapsee Pannu in the lead, and comes from the stable of Shoojit Sircar.
But...
Image Source: twitter/foxstarindia, IradaEntLLP, runningshaadi & theghaziattack