Huh? Huh? My punning skills have come back! Okay, and they are also a little dirty. But it’s not my fault, it’s the movie! (as always, numbers courtesy of Bollywoodhungama, full figures available here)
Remember how last week I said that the big story wasn’t Arjun Reddy being the top Indian film in America, it was that the Indian box office was TERRIBLE that week? Well, same goes this week! Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, a small slice of life romance with no big big stars, is the top Indian film in America. But it is 34th in the overall American box office. And it made less than $2,000 per screen. On only 58 screens. That’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.
Meanwhile, Baadshaho, which was supposed to be our big hit, made only $533 per screen. BWA-HA-HA-HA!!!! Take that Ajay and your stupid midlife crisis hair! Phew, that felt good to get out of my system.
(I just…what even IS this?)
Oh and Arjun Reddy? Yeah, the super mature type of realistic film isn’t going to save us either. Down to only $1,247 per screen.
So, what is doing good this week? Bareilly Ki Barfi! Week 4, still at a solid $1,214 per screen. Which is slightly better than Arjun Reddy just because it was a slower easier slide, with a lot less expectations.
Equally important, what is doing worst? I think I would have to give it to Poster Boys. Daddy is technically doing worst per screen, but then Daddy was never going to be a huge hit, expectations were a little lower. Poster Boys, it’s not like anyone thought it would be a great movie, but there was a small hope of at least breaking even at the box office, that someone would enjoy watching it. And, NOPE! $500 per screen. In OPENING WEEK.
This pattern, but the way, more or less holds worldwide. Baadshaho, Poster Boys, terrible. Bareilly Ki Barfi, steady. And Arjun Reddy, where it is playing, is dropping suddenly in week 3.
So, what does it MEAN? Well, people should stop making bad movies. This is the tipping point, right here, where word of mouth takes control over publicity. Baadshaho, crazily publicized, no box office there. Bareilly Ki Barfi, minimal publicity, doing well. Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, Daddy, Poster Boys, all about the same publicity, and finding their natural level.
(Ugh, a terrible publicity campaign! I have no interest in seeing the movie that goes with this poster)
And Arjun Reddy, bonkers strange publicity (poster campaign followed by news stories about poster campaign), wide release, made it mostly on word of mouth, but ran through the limited audience it could reach by week 3.
Looks like the bad times are going to keep on coming at least through the end of the month at this point. I’m not seeing anything terribly exciting on the horizon. But, if I am being optimistic, my hope is that I am not the only one seeing this pattern and more Bareilly Ki Barfis (great script, great director, small release, long run as word of mouth builds) will come out, along with a smattering of Arjun Reddys (risky subject matter that will be very popular in one audience segment), and NO BAADSHAHOS!!!!!
dontcallitbollywood 
I love the title 😉
I had no interest in watching Baadshaho, but now when you wrote that it did so poorly, and made me notice Ajay’s hair, I want watch it. Maybe it’s be so bad it’s good, like Mehbooba, my all-time favourite guilty-pleasure.
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Is Mehbooba the Ajay/Sanjay movie? If so, I have a fanvid for you!
On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 8:20 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Yes it is! It’s this strange movie that took many years and even more hair-style changes to be finished.
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This will BLOW YOUR MIND
On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 9:35 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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LOL this video is just too much. But I can’t enjoy it fully because I have seen this movie many times, and they are brothers in it (and it’s one of the most important things that make this movie so bad / good )
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Well now I kind of don’t want to watch the movie, because I don’t want to ruin the video!
On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 2:37 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Do you have any predictions BO-wise for upcoming films across industries? I heard a few big films crashed in the south industries too recently.
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Yeah, Arjun Reddy is looking super good partly because it is the only Telugu film in ages to do at all well. In Tamil, Madhavan’s “I’m a grown up cop who fixes his own motorcycle and has hot make-up sex with his wife” movie did okay, but some other real big stuff flopped (most notably Ajith’s new film). The next HUGE release is Mahesh Babu’s Spyder coming at the end of this month, Mahesh doesn’t do a lot of films, so every release is a big big deal. And this one is supposed to have an insane budget, and was shot simultaneously in Tamil and Telugu so it’s trying to hit both markets. If it flops, that’s gonna be a real game changer for the industries.
On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 8:32 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Predictions for it?
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Ask Niki! My most reliable Mahesh Babu commentator.
On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 9:32 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Well, actually the next big release is Jr. NTR’s Jai Lava Kusa in which he plays three characters. I just haven’t talked about it much since it hasn’t gotten me very excited so far. Plus it’s technically competing with Spyder since it’s coming out on the 21st. Here’s the trailer:
Anyway coming to Spyder, it’s supposedly made on a 125 crore budget which is really high. Comparatively Jai Lava Kusa was made on a budget of 45 crores. As of now, all the Mahesh fans I know are really excited about Spyder especially since it’s coming after the disaster that was Brahmotsavam. I’m personally just nervous about how the movie will be received in Tamil Nadu because this will be Mahesh’s first straight Tamil film. I don’t have box office predictions in India but in terms of the United States, Spyder is getting a huge release. I think it’s getting around 400 screens (250 Telugu, 150 Tamil split) and that’s huge when you see that Brahmotsavam got about 200 screens. The U.S. is known as Mahesh’s territory because even his worst films like Brahmotsavam and Aagadu do really well here. So it’s expected Spyder will do well, it’s just a matter of how well 🙂
Here’s the teaser of Spyder!
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I knew you would know everything! I wonder if Spyder is so big, it is going to bump Judwaa 2 off screens? In my market at least, a 400 screen release means all hands on deck, every single theater that even thinks about showing Indian films will be playing it. Which leaves very very few screens for Judwaa.
On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 2:10 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh okay. Do you think that they’ll keep all the screens for the entire first week or will it be something like a 400 screen premiere and then downsizing a bit by friday?
Okay, I’m getting conflicting info since some websites are saying that Spyder is getting an 800 screen release. The press release that I read yesterday said 400 screens. http://www.ndtv.com/entertainment/after-baahubali-2-mahesh-babus-spyder-to-get-biggest-release-in-us-1749312
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It could be a “four wall” thing. That is, some outside company rents out a theater to show the movie. That’s how I saw Bahubali, and I heard it was the same in a lot of places, you went to a regular multiplex, but that particular showing was sponsored by someone else. Which would also solve the issue with sharing screens with Judwaa. If Judwaa is doing regular distribution in regular theaters for Indian film, and the extra screens for Spyder are coming from special event screenings outside of the regular theaters.
On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 2:53 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I think they did that a lot with Baahubali. I saw it at a Cinemark that regularly shows Indian movies but there were a lot of random showings at theaters that never showed Indian movies before.
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It would be safest with a film like this or Bahubali. If it costs you $500 to rent the theater for the screening, you only have to sell 10 tickets and you’ve made your money back, and the 11th ticket is pure profit. So even if it isn’t in the regular Indian theater and not many people know about it, you can still make your money off of just a handful. Unlike Judwaa where it would be more like $8 a person and you’d need to come close to selling out before you make a profit.
On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 3:00 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh, that’s interesting. Turns out that I misread so Spyder is releasing in 400+ locations and about 800 screens.
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Wow! Hopefully that means one of those locations will have a convenient showtime/price for me.
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One thing that intrigues me is that Spyder is releasing on a Wednesday which means that the premieres will be on a Tuesday. Will releasing in the middle of the week affect the the box office a lot?
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That is a good question! Is it the same everywhere or just in the US, do you know?
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Thank you for this!! I was reading about the films’ pre-release business and apparently JLK has already done a 110c+ business and Spyder has 150c. Just in terms of numbers the movies seem to have recovered the production cost. Do you trust those figures? And do you give much weight to pre-release numbers in a film’s overall business??
Buzz-wise, JLK hindi rights have been bought by “a leading TV channel” which I’m guessing is Sony Max who have a new “Dil Se South” promotion that I watched just yesterday (Mirchi was on, sooo… hehe) It excites me because we’re probably going to get more south films dubbed in hindi. Which is good for us and also good for south films who can now sell hindi rights right off the bat even if the film isn’t released in the theatres in the north.
The really exciting news is that Spyder Hindi rights are getting bought by Dharma Productions! Not sure how authentic that news is but that is big news right??? Dharma is also bankrolling Saaho which isn’t a surprise (again, not sure how “official” that is but why would they lie about this?). So Dharma is early birding South films’ northern launches. How much of a difference would that, you think, would make to these films’ domestic business ??
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@Margaret: The worldwide release is on the 27th but North America and some areas in the Telugu states will be getting premiers on the 26th.
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So if I do pay oodles and oodles of money, I could put up a review before some of the Indian outlets have access. Oooo!
On Wed, Sep 13, 2017 at 10:08 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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@Asmita:
I honestly don’t trust those figures much because of all the fanwars that go on. There are arguments about both the pre-release business and the box office collections and following those numbers kinda gets tiring. Usually about a couple months later, there’s a number that most fans agree with and I usually go with that number. For example, I’ve heard numbers ranging from 80-100 crores when it comes to Srimanthudu’s box office collection. I’ve seen some Mahesh fans argue that the collection is 90+ but the most agreed upon number among fans of all heroes in 84 crores share.
I have a question. So how often are these south movies that are dubbed into Hindi remade? For example, I’m seeing rumors that Ranveer Singh’s movie with Rohit Shetty is going to be a remake of Temper. Since Temper came out in 2015 and was a fairly big hit, I’m assuming it was already dubbed into Hindi.
I saw those rumors about a month ago but after that there hasn’t been any update. Plus you would think that if Karan Johar got Spyder’s hindi rights, he would want to do a simultaneous release which doesn’t look like it’s happening. The latest I’ve heard is that Spyder will have a Hindi dubbed release but it’s going to be sometime later. I haven’t heard anything about Dharma bankrolling Saaho though. I think it’s too early to know that many details about Saaho.
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@Margaret: Honestly, I’m predicting that the highest it will be is $25. This is only based on Jai Lava Kusa’s premieres being priced at $18.
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There is a definite downturn in the remake business since there are at least three major hindi movie channels that have been focusing on Hindi dubbed South films. Up until like a year and a half ago, we got dubbed south films released on hindi TV with weird hindi titles (Khatarnak Khiladi, Dangerous Khiladi, something something else khiladi and so on).
NOW, however, we are getting south hindi dubbed version premiered with their original titles. There’s even an Allu Arjun ad on at least one hindi channel which means south stars are getting name recognition in the north now.
Recently, VIP2 and Nene Raju Nene Mantri were both screened in my tier 2 town in their original languages. VIP2 was released in hindi too but like a week later and at select screens. So south films’ reach is widening. This means remaking a film hindi audience has already seen before is less lucrative.
This is why I was really interested in hindi rights for major south releases post-BB. The figures may be fudged and inflated but the trend is indisputable. Hindi films play in the south and if south films are also getting released in the north, no more bad hindi remakes of good south films, right?
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Hahaha, his crises was the worst in that one with the gori who left him with the kid, may I say,Deol= flop. Old men who look old and sleazy …
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Shivaay? UGH! That movie was SO HORRIBLE.
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