Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi, Genius; Box-Office Collection, Day 2: Sonakshi Sinha Lengthens Strides, Uttkarsh Sharma Still Stranded At The Gates
Disaster has struck the Uttkarsh Sharma film, Genius. Friday did not set the cash registers ringing and the scenario on Day 2 was not good either. On the other hand, Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi starring Sonakshi Sinha has improved but nothing to about that
It was a 2-horse race but neither of the two is
galloping; Genius, in particular, is far from it. Friday did not set the
cash registers ringing for Anil Sharma's Genius starring his son
Uttkarsh opposite newbie Ishita Chauhan. Harsh reviews and poor word-of-mouth
has only compounded its woes. Candidly speaking, Genius has had an awful
start. On the other hand, Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi starring Sonakshi Sinha and
Jassi Gill took off lazily on Friday, but gathered some momentum the next day.
There are many people who are not even aware that a film
starring Uttkarsh Sharma, Ishita Chauhan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui (still beats
me why he accepted this role and made a mockery of himself, or if a
very fat pay-packet did the trick) called Genius hit theatres on
Friday. It won't be an exaggeration to say that it has crashed before
it took off. We brought you its box-office collection of Day 1 being
only Rs 60 lakh. It was a given that multiplexes must have cancelled some
of its shows on Day 1, owing to low occupancy. We now have it that
PVR Juhu cancelled 2 of its 4 shows of Genius on Friday and the occupancy on
Saturday was a mere 4 per cent. The recent figures which have come in for
Saturday indicate that the collection was barely Rs 1 crore. It is clear
that the distributors and exhibitors who chose to release it, are
going to incur losses. Think of it, the trailer had created no buzz and
importantly, the word-of-mouth is not encouraging either. Add this to the
reviews which have been critical of the plot, direction and acting. A
miracle is required to turn the tables of Genius. But do miracles really
happen? Genius is nothing but a promise fulfilled by a father to
his son that he will launch him in Bollywood--- but there's no screenplay,
no dialogues, no acting, no emotion, no songs... nothing to mention about. 
Exhibitor Ratan Jain of Gold Cinemas tells us that Genius
has bitten the dust in UK too. We also hear from distributor-exhibitor
Hemant Shah that some shows of the film were cancelled in Gujarat
too.
Meanwhile, Happy
Phirr Bhag Jayegi which was an average film has collected Rs 4 crore
(approx) on Day 2- a decent improvement over Day 1. Box-Office India has
reported that the film is doing similar business to the last film of its
franchise (so far) but may not hold as well as that film in the long run.
Goes without
saying that the multiplexes are waiting for this week to quickly get over
especially because of Genius that they have been bridled with, and await Stree
starring Shraddha Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao. Stree releases on August 31.
