Star cast: Kartik Aaryan, Paresh Rawal, Kriti Sanon, Sachin Khedekar, Ronit Roy, Manisha Koirala, Ankur Rathee, Sunny Hinduja & Rajpal Yadav
Director: Rohit Dhawan
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Producers: Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Aman Gill, Allu Aravind, S. Radha Krishna & Kartik Aaryan
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Everything was going well and pre-release buzz too had been decent until the makers decided to shift the film’s release date by postponing it by one week. Yes, initially it was scheduled to release on 10th February but then was shifted to 17th February. The decision was taken a couple of weeks ago. This is the point where the makers lost the perception battle. Even though an official statement from the makers says the move was ‘out of respect’ for Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan, it sent a loud message among the audience that they were afraid to stand in front of the Pathaan wave.
Another thing is the low advance booking of the film. We all know the power of social media as it influences the neutral audience about a particular film. From the last couple of days, reports are doing around that the pre-sales of Shehzada are not at all good, which is clearly having an impact on the film’s image. Even before the release, negative talks are going viral all over.
So, we can clearly see how this Kartik Aaryan starrer came crashing down in the perception battle in the crucial pre-release stage after a good initial momentum.
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As we mentioned above, the film had a low advance booking, which was clearly reflected in early shows. Yes, there were walk-ins but the occupancy was nowhere close to what Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 enjoyed. Speaking about myself, I watched the 11.30 am show and there were around 28-30 people in the theatre. For BB 2, it was around 55-60 people for the 8 am show. Well, you can clearly see the difference.
Speaking about the good things, Shehzada is a popcorn family entertainer and the word-of-mouth too has been mostly on the decent side so far. Interestingly, even the viewers who are calling it an average affair, have only positive things to say about Kartik Aaryan’s performance.
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Speaking about the negatives, the film is in a clash with Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, resulting in a loss of a considerable chunk of screens. If this wasn’t enough, Akshay Kumar and Emraan Hashmi’s Selfiee is releasing next week. As it is backed by Dharma Productions along with a face value of Akki, the film will get a good screen count. So, for Shehzada, it’s just a span of one week to perform its best. Then on top of all, there’s Pathaan which is still bringing in crowds with its attractive offers.
Just like every other remake in Bollywood, Shehzada too is facing wrath of brutal comparison with the OG film as a lot of people in the Hindi belt have already watched Allu Arjun’s Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo.
On the whole, Shehzada has its share of struggles despite being a decent family entertainer. If released as per the original plan i.e. on 10th February, things would have been much different. Loss in the perception battle early on, poor release strategy and a drawback of being a remake are the factors acting clearly like a roadblock in Kartik Aaryan’s journey of becoming a bankable star from just a monologue specialist!
Shehzada will earn somewhere between 60-75 crores.
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