During last couple of weeks, there have been a dozen odd flops that Bollywood has suffered. Neerja is the only film that did well in entire February and has been keeping theaters engaged to some extent. However, the situation has been largely grim for Bollywood with multiple films made in the budget of 5-15 crore hitting the screens and turning out to be complete non-starters.
Hence, the release of Jai Gangaajal is important since it has a superstar heroine in the midst of affairs, Priyanka Chopra. After Mary Kom, this is yet another flick where she is the central protagonist. The title has a very good recall value, considering the fact that the Ajay Devgn starrer is remembered till date. Prakash Jha may have not delivered a hit for a while now but his name carries weight. Moreover, his name is synonymous with Gangaajal, which makes the film all the more interesting. He is also stepping in as a male lead and that should be exciting to watch on screen.
However, even though the promotion has been quantitatively good, somehow the hype that one expected for it to gain by now isn’t optimal. One would have expected the film to be plastered all over but the buzz is decent, not extraordinary, which means from the opening standpoint one can look at 30%-40% odd footfalls, and then eventually audience word of mouth coming into picture. Mary Kom had done the business of 8 crore on Day 1 and that would be tough to beat.
Zubaan is the second release of the week and though a few industry folks have been heaping praises on the musical since the launch of the trailer, the overall promotion has been very weak. It would be a miracle if the film manages to find some footing over the weekend.
Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder