t's official: notwithstanding all those hurt feelings, burnt cinema halls and riots, Border is a super hit. Hero No 1 and Judwaa, both directed by David Dhawan, Judaai, and Ziddi were hits -- without the prefix 'super', mind you.
That the results of the half-yearly performance of the Hindi film industry.
Border's collections averaged over Rs 20 million in each of the five territories in India. The war saga, starring Sunny Deol, Sunil Shetty, Jackie Shroff, Akshaye Khanna, Tabu, Pooja Bhatt and others is about the battle of Longewalla fought during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war.
|
Govinda, Karishma Kapoor in Hero No 1
|
The film, which brings director J P Dutta back in the reckoning, is expected to do a business in the region of Rs 80 million per territory before it finishes its run.
Hero No 1 and Judwaa, both ended up grossing over Rs 25 million per territory and Ziddi , Rs 22.5 million.
If you are not in the know, a super hit in Bollywood is a film that makes more than double its cost of making -- a profit of, say, about 130 per cent. A hit chugs along nicely with a 100 per cent profit. The rest... Need we describe them.
|
THE TOPPERS
|
Superhit: A film that earns much more than double its cost (Technically termed A11)
Hit: Film earns double the cost of the production (AI).
Semi-hit: earns a little less than double (A).
Overflow: Earns its commission and the surplus profits is called overflow which is sent to the producer (B11).
Commission earner: Got its money back (B1).
The rest: Washouts and wimps
|
Superhit:
Border
Hit:
Hero No 1
Judwaa
Judaai
Ziddi
Semi Hit:
Virasat
Overflow:
Aastha
Yeshwant
Commission earner:
Koyla
Kaalia
The rest:
Mrityudaata, Mahaanta, Tamanna, Himalay Putra, Sardari Begum, Lahoo Ke Do Rang, etc.
|
Anil Kapoor will mark 1997 as a red-letter year. He was keeping his fingers crossed after the release of his film Judaai (Indecent Proposal in reverse gear), which has him as the objet de plaisir of Urmila Matondkar, with Sridevi playing a money-grubbing wife.
Anil was reluctant about this project till father Surinder Kapoor twisted him arm. The rest is box office history. The film was also helped by reports of Sridevi's marriage to Boney Kapoor and her pregnancy, all of which coincided with the release of the film.
Anil followed up with Virasat, a remake of the Sivaji Ganesan-Kamal Hassan starrer Thevar Magan. The film helped many involved in the project. Virasat is director Priyadarsan's first Hindi hit; it also marked the successful debut of Pooja Batra.
|
Anil Kapoor, Amrish Puri in Virasat
|
All these films did well because "they are good films", according to trade pundit, Komal Nahta. Distributor Shyam Shroff points out that what clicks and what doesn't is " a absolute mystery. Sometimes you find some films running which appear to have no chance. So it is not possible to say what clicks. But the biggest hit of the year, Border, has great sound quality. It's a very fine war film that has been made after many years. Technically the film is great and for the first time a film names the enemy instead of making observations about enemy activity beyond the border."
|
Sunny Deol, Raveena Tandon in Ziddi
|
Besides these, some films made a decent profit (30 per cent above the cost of making them). Aastha, made by the late Basu Bhattacharya. It was released during the film strike earlier this year where audiences were already starved of films. The theme was different, and it was the only new film that the film-starved audiences had, since it was released during the film strike early this year.
|
Nana Patekar in Yeshwant
|
Yeshwant opened to a fantastic initial which helped it get an overflow. Nana Patekar and his fiery dialogues were the strong point of the film.
The Shahrukh-Madhuri starrer Koyla just about recovered its money, losing money in most of the circuits. One of the main reasons the audiences avoided the film was the excessive violence, that director Rakesh Roshan used to pad a sketchy script and a much abused storyline.
The first half of the year also saw much hyped box office disasters. The biggest being the comeback film of the Big B himself, Amitabh Bachchan's comeback venture, Mrityudaata sank without a trace adding to the tales of woe of Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Ltd.
|
Amitabh Bachchan in Mrityudaata
|
The film suffered due to a lot of factors, tremendous public expectation and media build-up, also Mehul Kumar failed to give the superstar a new image, the audiences had a overdose of the old man doing what he did 20 years ago, coupled with lengthy dialogues giving the impression that Amitabh was about to contest in another election.
Akshaye Khanna's debut film Himalay Putra had everything in it in the right doses. But it also had Vinod Khanna and Hema Malini and a major portion of the film was devoted to them, drawing attention away from the lead pair, who were making their debut.
|
Sanjay Dutt, Madhuri Dixit in Mahaanta
|
Though its failure did not affect Akshaye Khanna in the least bit, as he had the critics raving and he proved his point with a superlative follow-up in Border.
Sanjay Dutt's first film after his release from jail, Mahaanta, was much publicised, but the film, being part of his backlog, had nothing new to offer, So despite it having his ex-flame Madhuri Dixit in it, the film failed to click at the turnstiles. Dutt is biding his time for next month's release, Daud, in which he has Urmila as his co-star and Ram Gopal Varma as director.
|
Ajay Devgan, Twinkle in Itihaas
|
The much publicised Itihaas which was Raj Kanwar's first film as a producer, broke his till then unbroken hit record with Jeet, Judaai, Jaan. The film had the same team of Kanwar's previous film Jaan, Ajay Devgan and Twinkle Khanna; that was also the film's biggest fault. Jaan was barely out of the audiences memory and Itihaas turned to be just a rehash of it and other Kanwar films. Devgan, who is also a distributor had taken the Bombay territory as his fees. He lost a lot on this venture.
Among the other big failures was Pooja Bhatt's first film as a producer and director Mahesh Bhatt's return to form Tamanna. The film suffered from problems of poor production and technical quality. The script was loose and the music was nothing to write home about.
|
Pooja Bhatt, Paresh Rawal in Tamanna
|
Though the Kajol-Prabhu Deva-Arvind Swamy starrer Sapnay was much awaited, it proved a disappointment. The biggest drawback was its dubbing. In Sapnay, made originally for a Tamil-speaking audience, the lip synch was especially atrocious. Music by A R Rahman was a big asset though and one reason the film did better than it would have.
The next half of the year has some big films in the pipeline -- Subhash Ghai's Pardes, Ram Gopal Varma's Daud, Deepa Mehta's Fire, Mira Nair's Kama Sutra: A Story of Love, Yash Chopra's Dil to Pagal Hai, Aziz Mirza's Yes Boss, Indra Kumar's Ishq etc.
But, as current trends show, a big name is no longer guarantee of a big hit. Ask Amitabh Bachchan.
