Magic of small films fading
away
By Jivraj Burman
Mumbai,
Dec 11 (IANS) Box office failure of small budget films like
"Sorry Bhai!", "Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye",
"Maharathi" and "Dil Kabaddi" has broken
the myth that small is successful.
One
after the other the small budget movies are crashing at the
box-office, marking doom for their producers. Failures of
films have left scars on others associated with these movies,
including the actors and writers.
The
worst happened during the last two weeks when all the above-mentioned
"small-budget" movies - also including "Meerabai
Not Out" -- were released to take advantage of the gap
that appeared before the release of the biggies - Shah Rukh
Khan starrer "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi" and "Ghajini"
that has Aamir Khan in the main lead - in the coming weeks
and fell flat at the box-office without exception.
After
the failure of the movies, the producers, who have made these
movies on the periphery of Bollywood, find themselves in a
piquant situation. They are startled by the outright rejection
of their productions by the audience. Failures have set them
thinking as to where they have gone wrong.
"Well,
they have gone wrong on many fronts," said Komal Nahata,
a trade analyst. "First, they erred on the presumption
that the box-office success of the last year's release, 'Bheja
Fry', was a harbinger of good times for non-star-cast productions.
"When
this small budget movie hit the big time at the box-office,
it got many producers thinking that the time had come for
them to replicate its success. So, they hurriedly put together
their productions without bothering to analyse what, actually,
had made 'Bheja Fry' click in the first place," Nahata
added.
Nahata
further said that the success of "Bheja Fry" did
more harm to Bollywood than good, as anybody who could raise
some finance dreamt of hitting the jackpot by putting together
a "Bheja Fry" like production.
"The
movie itself became a genre of sort and a host of small time
producers misjudged it when they tried to cash in on it,"
Nahata said.
Yes,
the fact that stares them today in the face is that they have
become poorer by a few millions, if not more, because the
movies they made could not draw even a modicum of good initial
revenue. The fate of these movies have already been sealed.
"Sorry
Bhai", that released on Nov 28, cut a very sorry figure
as it could collect only a few hundred rupees on its opening
day in many centres.
Neither
was the box-office performance of One More Thought Entertainment's
"Dasvidaniya" any better, even though the movie's
cast was headed by the "Bheja Fry" actor, Vinay
Pathak, who also co-produced it.
UTV's
"Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye" starring Abhay Deol, Paresh
Rawal, Neetu Chandra and Archana Puran Singh, just about scraped
through, but it could not repeat even the marginal success
of the company's earlier releases like "Aamir",
"A Wednesday" and "Welcome To Sajjanpur".
Ditto
is the fate of four small-budget comedies - "Maharathi",
"Dil Kabaddi", "Oh, My God!" and "Meerabai
Not Out". Each one of them turned out to be a losing
proposition.
"Paresh
Rawal may be a good actor, among the best Bollywood has at
present. But he can't carry a movie on his shoulders. 'Maharathi'
proved that amply," trade analyst Vinod Mirani said.
"Extra
marital affair is no funny matter in the Indian society, so
the audiences cold shouldered 'Dil Kabaddi'. Mandira Bedi
is as much a bore in the cricket-based comedy, 'Meerabai Not
Out', as she is as a television anchor, over-enthusiastic
to the point of giving jitters to the audience," Mirani
said.
Added
V. Varma: "Inanities cannot be passed off as funny, but
that is exactly what director Saurabh Srivastava tries to
do in 'Oh, My God!' and pays a price for taking the audience
for granted.
"The
makers of all these four movies thought they were making 'time
pass' entertainers, concocting funny stories without giving
any serious thought to the scripts. The truth has now dawned
on them that the audience does not laugh without reasons,
that to elicit a laugh from them is a serious matter. Amalgamation
of funny sequences does not make a comedy."
Bollywood
trade circles are unanimous in observing that it is the overconfidence
on the part of the directors and producers of these movies
and actors working in them that actually forestalled their
chances at the box-office.
Indo-Asian
News Service
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