Immensely talented Indian actress Vidya Balan is gearing up for the theatrical release of her next film titled ‘Neeyat’, which releases on 7th July in cinemas. Helmed by Anu Menon, it’s being described as a mystery crime whodunnit where Vidya Balan will be essaying the lead role of an unconventional detective Mira Rao.
The film’s story revolves around a murder which takes place at billionaire Ashish Kapoor’s birthday bash. Now, the protagonist Mira Rao must use her astute investigative skills to unravel the mystery by examining the clues and several suspects. Earlier today, the makers unveiled an intriguing teaser which has set high hopes for ‘Neeyat’.
So far, everything about ‘Neeyat’ is looking good: right from the film’s look from the teaser, a capable lead actress to a truly talented ensemble supporting cast which includes Ram Kapoor, Rahul Bose, Neeraj Kabi, Niki Walia, Shahana Goswami, and Shashank Arora, amongst others.
Interestingly, ‘Neeyat’ bears a resemblance to Rian Johnson’s globally popular murder mystery film ‘Knives Out’. Both ‘Neeyat’ and ‘Knives Out’ are whodunnits, have multiple characters who belong to an affluent background and a peculiar detective who is out to investigate a murder where the victim’s close ones are the prime suspects. And the earlier ‘Neeyat’ poster even had a knife in it!
But the one thing which is troubling us is that ‘Neeyat’ should have adopted the two-pronged ‘Knives Out 2’ approach. First is to potentially convert ‘Neeyat’ into a whodunnit film franchise the way ‘Knives Out’ films did, provided that the first film does well. So, that remains to be seen.
And the second and the more important thing is that the makers should have conceived ‘Neeyat’ as a direct-to-OTT release rather than a theatrical release. Vidya Balan’s last two films namely ‘Jalsa’, ‘Sherni’, and ‘Shakuntala Devi’ were all released directly on the Amazon Prime Video OTT platform, and they were appreciated by a segment of streaming audiences. These kinds of films with a niche audience perform well on OTT, however, their theatrical success is not guaranteed. And on the BookMyShow ticketing app, ‘Neeyat’ has received interest from just around 350 people until now.
And since ‘Neeyat’ is a co-production between Abundantia Entertainment and Prime Video, Prime Video could have thought about releasing ‘Neeyat’ directly on their OTT platform. Or perhaps after a limited theatrical release so that it benefits through good word-of-mouth later on OTT.
We do not have any doubts about Vidya Balan’s acting prowess and even her box-office pull, but it should be taken into consideration that the gifted ‘Kahaani’ actress hasn’t had a solo theatrical release for a few years. And the box-office trend has been altered drastically post-COVID. But now that ‘Neeyat’ will first release in cinemas, it would be interesting to see whether it can pull the target audience in decent numbers or not.
Neeyat Teaser –
A world of mysteries and motives will be revealed.
Stay tuned…#Neeyat releases on 7th July, only in theatres. @anumenon1805 @Abundantia_Ent @vikramix @PrimeVideoIN @PenMovies@RamKapoor @RahulBose1 @NeerajKabi1 @shahanagoswami #AmritaPuri @Dipannitasharma #NikiWalia pic.twitter.com/RyXPx3KX0V— vidya balan (@vidya_balan) June 21, 2023
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