The Hindi film industry right now needs something absolutely solid. Something solid, enough to bring it out of the dark hole that it has gone down into. The Box Office needs a big revival from the Hindi film industry specifically to bring the confidence back. The movies that were expected to do a bit of good and maybe somehow revive the Box Office, aren’t able to do much right now. Hopes were really high for amazing earnings from Akshay Kumar’s Bell Bottom, but right now it has gone down. Along with that, Emraan Hashmi–Amitabh Bachchan starrer “Chehre” was expected to bring something in, but we aren’t seeing anything there either.
Emraan Hashmi and Amitabh Bachchan starrer “Chehre” is a mystery thriller that was released on Friday and lots of eyes were stuck on whether the movie would do any good. But sadly, it hasn’t; in fact, it has scored lower than what Bell Bottom earned in the first two days of the release itself. The film opened to an estimated Rs. 45 Lakhs and then on Saturday, it was able to rise a bit and get to Rs. 60 lakhs margin. This brings the total of the movie to Rs. 1.05 crores. According to analysts, the movie wouldn’t have done well even if it was released during non-pandemic times. It’s hard for such movies to bring an audience to the halls, especially with the 50% occupancy rate and also the pandemic.
The movie has only achieved good in Delhi NCR regions. The growth anywhere else is extremely slow and in some places, it’s almost invisible. Experts believe that a direct-to-OTT release would have been way better than taking the risk and releasing it in theatres. If an Akshay Kumar star-studded movie wasn’t able to revive; things are really difficult for mystery and dark-themed movies like “Chehre” to do the same. The box office really needs something from Hollywood or big scale Bollywood, or Pan-Indian South Indian films to bring everything back on track.
Akshay Kumar’s Bell Bottom entered its second week, and its growth has slowed down from Tuesday. The film has right now collected Rs. 19.50 crores and the only consistency that is being seen right now is coming from the Gujarat regions, where it has dropped 60%, which is way better, considering the rest of India, which is seeing a 75% drop in the audience.
The next big movies that we have, which will hit theatres in India are the Hollywood movies like Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings”, “F9”, “A Quiet Place 2”. But above all, all eyes are on “Thailavii” at the moment. Kangana Ranaut’s movie will be released in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu which gives it an edge, and maybe this can bring the audience back to theatres and at least do the expected business, which “Bell Bottom” and “Chehre” have failed to do. This fear of seeing no or less audience has pushed makers of RRR, RadheShyam to choose a date in 2022. Also, there have been no confirmations of big-budget movies like “’83”, “Sooryavanshi”, “Maidaan” and others. The only expectation after “Thalaivii”, will be Aamir Khan’s “Laal Singh Chaddha” if “Maidaan” moves from the already mentioned date.
The situation at the Box Office right now is tricky and everyone is hoping for a miracle. First, it was Bell Bottom and Chehre, and now all eyes are on “Thalaivii” and we sincerely hope that we get to see good revivals in the Box Office pretty soon.