12TH FAIL IS A SLEEPER HIT; NEW RELEASES TO FACE A TOUGH TIME
The last week was bittersweet for the industry. Tejas tanked horribly and it’ll be a miracle if it manages to collect around Rs. 8 crores at the box office. Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video was a bigger disaster as it collected just Rs. 7 lakhs on the first day. The film will struggle to reach even Rs. 60 lakhs in its lifetime.
However, 12th Fail has emerged as one of the biggest surprises of 2023. Not much was expected from it but on the first day, it collected Rs. 1 crore. It saw an insane jump as it collected Rs. 2.40 crores on Saturday and Rs. 2.85 crores on Sunday. Monday was better than Friday when the film collected Rs. 1.10 crores. On Tuesday, collections increased to Rs. 1.25 crore instead of dropping. If all goes well, it’ll end up collecting nearly Rs. 25 crores. Pre-Diwali is a very dry period for films and 12th Fail and Vijay’s Tamil film Leo have proved to be good fillers in cinemas before the big festival.
Tomorrow will see the release of Aankh Micholi. It stars Paresh Rawal, Abhimanyu, Mrunal Thakur, Sharman Joshi, Divya Dutta, Vijay Raaz, Abhishek Banerjee, Grusha Kapoor and Darshan Jariwala and is directed by Umesh Shukla of OMG Oh My God and 102 Not Out fame. The shoot of this comic caper was completed in March 2020, just before the lockdown. The film took a long time to release and is one of the most delayed films after Brahmastra and Maidaan. It was going to be released on October 27 but was pushed by a week as the previous Friday was crowded.
Aankh Micholi seems like a fun, old-school entertainer but the awareness is near-zero. Hence, it’ll struggle to open just like last week’s films. With just 9 days left for Diwali, the aam junta will be busy with pre-Diwali chores, shopping etc than watching a film. Hence, the lean period coupled with negligible buzz will prove detrimental. However, the film will find takers on television later on.
The other Hindi release of the week is The Lady Killer. It is directed by Ajay Bahl of BA Pass and Section 375 fame and stars Arjun Kapoor and Bhumi Pednekar. The film will be released in hardly 3-4 theatres in Mumbai and a few more cities. It is a token release since the makers have recovered the amount from the sale of digital and TV rights. But as per the conditions, they need to give it a theatrical release. As a result, it’s a case of releasing it on the big screen for the heck of it. The makers aren’t promoting it at all and have simply uploaded the trailer of the film. Arjun and Bhumi reportedly are upset with such a release and have not posted about the film on their social media handles.
Lastly, Shastry Viruddh Shastry will also arrive in cinemas. It has got a better release than The Lady Killer but it won’t matter much.