AskIndicine: Now answering questions live!

We have been receiving a lot of requests for AskIndicine: Live QnA. The session goes live at 7PM Indian Standard Time. We will answer a few questions in details and others will get short answers.

Q. How much will Kya Kool Hai Hum 3 and Mastizaade affect Airlift’s collection ? Will Airlift cross 100 crore because there is equal buzz for all the 3 movies. (Suhail)

A. Kya Kool Hain Hum 3 and Airlift release on the same (January 22). Both belong to different genres and the target audience is completely different. KKHH3 will perform well at single-screens in smaller centres, while Airlift will have a big lead at multiplexes. The latter will be word-of-mouth dependent, because the opening is unlikely to be huge. Both films have to collect around 65-70 crore in the domestic market to recover costs. As for Airlift collecting 100 crore, anything is possible as long as the film strikes a chord with the audience.

Q. Heard a news that the clash between Raees and Sultan has been averted. How much of this news is true? And if yes, then which movie is releasing on Eid? (Arshad)

A. Yash Raj Films’ has confirmed twice that Sultan will release during Eid. Since the shooting schedule of both films are currently in progress, don’t think either will shift their film to a later date for now. If the clash has to be averted, it might happen after a month or two.

Q. Rajesh Khanna in his golden years or Salman Khan today, who saw bigger stardom? (Shubham)

A. It’s unfair to compare the two. Rajesh Khanna had golden run was shorter as compared to Salman, but he delivered 14-15 back-to-back hits in 3 years (Read article). This is huge because those were the days of silver (25 weeks), golden (50 weeks) and diamond (75 weeks) jubilees. There was a time when two or more Rajesh Khanna films were running at the same time. Salman, on the other hand, does fewer films but his record of back-to-back blockbuster has never been achieved before. He has also been able to sustain his stardom for much longer.

Q. Did ban and protest really hurt Dilwale, if yes then how much? (Armaan)

A. It’s difficult to put a number to this. The film probably lost around 5 crore of business, but most centres where the screening was affected, the issue was sorted out and the film eventually released. Even in Mangalore where Dilwale stopped playing after 3 days, screening was resumed in Week 3 (this was probably the worst affected city). The problem for Dilwale was, even where the film had an uninterrupted run, it did not trend or sustain well.

Q. Which are Highest grossing Hollywood films in India?

A. Jurassic Park, Fast and Furious 7 and Avengers: Age of Ultron. All of which released in India last year.

Q. When will Fan Trailer come out?

A. Theatrical trailer expected next month. YRF doesn’t announce trailer launch date in advance.

Q. Why Nishikant Kamat’s films always get bad release date or poor promotion? Both his Force and Drishyam were loved by the audience and commercially successful also but they failed to emerge as big hits because of bad timing and low buzz.

A. Force did not do well at the box office, nor was it carrying positive word-of-mouth. It opened at 5 crore on Friday and crashed to 1.5 crore on Monday. About the timing of release, there have been several examples of films doing well inspite of tough competition. Bajirao Mastani did very well even though it released in the same week as Dilwale. Mere Brother Ki Dulhan released a week after Bodyguard and was a huge hit. Ram Leela came between so many films, but went on to do well. Drishyam released when the audience had already spent on two movies, Baahubali and Bajrangi Bhaijaan. They also had a big film in the form of Brothers to look forward to. In hindsight, it could have probably released during a better period, but before release, the makers probably didn’t expect Baahubali and Bajrangi Bhaijaan to find the appreciation that they did.

Q. How do you think the trade is reacting to the result of Dilwale vs Bajirao Clash? Do you think it will end the khans reign over the holiday period? Since the smaller film won the clash do you think other smaller filmmakers will now dare to clash their movies with the bigger film? But at the same time both movies lost a chunk of their business due to the clash, so filmmakers will avoid clashes in the future. What’s your opinion on this?

A. There will be more clashes in the future, for sure. Bajirao Mastani wouldn’t have collected as much as it did, without a holiday like Christmas. Eventually everything fell into place for the film – ticket prices were higher as compared to a normal release, competition was weak after first week and Bajirao Mastani took full advantage of 3-4 weeks. Now that the film has done so well, it was probably a carefully planned move from Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Eros. Clashing against a Shah Rukh Khan film guarantees free publicity and the makers were confident that the film had the potential to work in the long run. Other filmmakers will definitely give the festive weekends a shot now and the Khan dominance isn’t looking as strong as it did in the last few years.  A well-made film, backed by a strong banner (Eros, UTV, YRF etc) can challenge Khan films during festive weekend and win. That feeling / confidence is definitely there now. There is no reason why a film like say ‘Welcome Back’ can’t target a big holiday and do well, it can.

Q. What is the lifetime collections of Tamashaa? In domestic and overseas both? And what is the verdict of it? (Tausif)

A. Rs 68 crore in India. Rs 41 crore overseas. Share was around 52 crore from both. Flop.

Q. Any Salman Khan movie in 2017?

A. Yes, Dabangg 2 and a film produced by Atul Agnihotri.

Q. The season of award shows have started and ironically none of them have not even nominated Akshay Kumar. Finally, Filmfare have also neglected him and nominated not so good performances of Ranbir Kapoor and Shahrukh Khan. What is your stand on this? (TheSKB)

A. The short answer to this is, no one really knows. It’s confusing. They say, their nominations are based on popular choices i.e audience voting. But last year, they nominated Randeep Hooda for Rang Rasiya – a film that no one watched – in the Best Actor category. Shah Rukh, for example, wasn’t nominated for Happy New Year last year. Do they really want us to believe, Randeep Hooda got more votes than Shah Rukh (HNY) and Salman (Kick) last year? Even the industry doesn’t take these guys seriously any more. Awards is for entertainment, watch today, forget tomorrow. If you win, it could make him / her happy, but not proud. If you don’t, doesn’t matter. Hope this changes soon. It’s a shame that the industry doesn’t have a single awards ceremony that honours the best performance of the year.

Q. What is a niche title like ‘Baby’ affects business and hype of a movie (Narendra)

A. When you title a film as ‘Baby’ the audience can’t relate to it. It’s like the title of a book. If that’s not appealing enough, you might not buy it at the store. There is  a saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, but the fact is, lot of people do. At smaller centres this makers a big difference. To give examples, Aamir Khan is someone who prefers to stick to Hindi titles, he believes 3 Idiots would have collected more than it did, had it released with a Hindi title. Another example is Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. If it released with it’s tentative title of ‘Running with the bulls’, it wouldn’t have performed as well as it did. Even Javed Akhtar’s poems which were narrated by Farhan Akhtar (Check them out) wouldn’t have made the same impact with a ‘niche’ title like ‘Running with the bulls’. Having said that, a title like Half Girlfriend / 2 States strikes that balance and increases curiosity even with a english title.

Q. Is Shah Rukh Khan doing a cameo in Gauri Shinde’s movie, which has Alia Bhatt in the lead? – Anupama

A. The makers are secretive about the film and the role that Shah Rukh plays. It isn’t going to be a lead role is what we’ve heard.

Q. Why does Shahid Kapoor continue to get films when his track record is the stuff of nightmares?

A. Because he is a talented actor. Ditto for Ranbir Kapoor. Good actors get a lot more opportunities than actors who can’t carry a film.

Q. Is Ranveer Singh the next superstar? (Samy)

A. The question itself speaks volumes of what one Friday can do to an actor’s career. He was written off after Kill Dil and Bajirao Mastani was expected to fail. In just three weeks, he has already won a few Best Actor awards, everyone in the trade is talking about him, he’s being flooded with great offers from top filmmakers and even the media is enjoying his off-screen antics. Suddenly, everything about him is fantastic. Even though, he’s the same Ranveer. Bajirao Mastani has happened at the perfect time for him. He has signed only one film, Aditya Chopra’s Befikre. And yes, he has the potential to be the next big star.

Q. Ae Dil Hai Mushkil vs Shivaay? Don’t you think it’s suicidal for Ajay Devgn to clash with a Karan Johar movie?

A. After Bajirao Mastani vs Dilwale.. no clash is ‘suicidal’. The better film will work, even though one might get a bigger opening.

Q. How much the pirated version affect the business of movies of big stars, is there anyone in india who has been arrested while making a copy of the film, why not Bollywood take serious step against this serious issue?

A. Difficult to ascertain the impact of piracy, but it’s definitely pretty big. The impact on big screen experiences like ‘Baahubali’ or ‘Bajirao Mastani’ is lesser, but smaller films like ‘Talvar’ tend to suffer more, because the audience feel they are not missing out much by watching it on the smaller screen for free. It’s very difficult to stop internet piracy. You ban one website, there are hundred more that are created.

Q. Who is the biggest Khan in this decade (2010-2015)?

A. Salman Khan, by far. He has 7 blockbusters. The next best is Aamir Khan, who has 2. By the way, decade begins from 2011 and not 2010. Read Wikipedia to know why.

That ends the QnA session for today. More questions that have been already posted will be answered soon. Thank you for posting your questions and apologies to those whose questions haven’t been answered.