Bollywood produced a mixed bag on April 4, including
Jal, a quasi-art house movie directed by debutant
Girish Malik,
David Dhawan-directed rom-com-action flick Main Tera Hero and
Ebn-E-Batuta, a sci-fi overloaded with various issues and laced with humour. But true to the
Bollywood tradition, the madcap entertainer
MTH, starring David’s son
Varun and the sizzling female leads
Ileana D’Cruz and
Nargis Fakri, has topped the
box office chart this time.
Main Tera Hero had an average start though, netting just Rs 6.6 crore at home on the opening Friday and recording 35-40% occupancy rate. But in spite of the cricket fever built around the India-Sri Lanka T20 World Cup final on Sunday, business picked up exceedingly well for the wild and whacky comedy flick and it netted a little over Rs 22 crore during the first weekend, as per industry estimates. It did moderately well on the crucial Day 4 (Monday, April 7) and collections at
domestic box office amounted to nearly Rs 4 crore, as per industry estimates. Although
MTH is a
big budget movie and cost around Rs 40 crore, the money would be recovered soon, going by
ticket sales. The movie is produced by Shobha Kapoor and
Ekta Kapoor for Balaji Motion Pictures.
MTH is
Varun Dhawan’s second appearance in Bollywood – after
Karan Johar-directed commercial success
Student of the Year, which also starred
Sidharth Malhotra and
Alia Bhatt. The movie raked in Rs 28-29 crore nett in the first weekend, considerably higher than what
Main Tera Hero did in spite of some extensive
pre-release hype.
Before we tell you what worked and didn’t work for this
David Dhawan comedy, let’s take a look at the
box office performances of the other two releases. Purab Kohli-Tannishtha Chatterjee-Kirti Kulhari starrer
Jal has a pertinent theme – it portrays the wild and water-starved
Rann of Kutch and its people locked in an eternal battle with their hostile surroundings. The movie has been criticised by many as a ‘festival’ flick while others vouch it is as commercial as can be. But either way, it has cut no ice with the domestic audience and reportedly grossed less than Rs 3 crore at home after the first weekend while fourth day collections stood at Rs 40-50 lakh.
DAR Motion Pictures, in collaboration with
One World Films, released the movie across 385 screens, which means it is targeting a
niche audience.
Ebn-E-Batuta, the third release of the week, also bombed the
box office. The movie grossed some Rs 40-50 lakh on the first day, but the opening weekend numbers are yet to come in. Directed by
Varun Middha, this one had an estimated budget of Rs 5 crore, but may follow the same fate as
Jal.
Coming back to
Main Tera Hero, it is not difficult to understand what makes this movie so popular. This one provides a laughter riot – a mad concoction of romance, action and
David Dhawan’s brand of none-too-subtle comedy. But the best thing to happen to us is the star son Varun Dhawan, lauded by most critics as the
Young Govinda. It is a remake of the Telugu blockbuster
Kandireega – telling the story of
Sreenath Prasad or
Seenu (Varun Dhawan). The problem kid comes to the big city to put his life in order, carries out his romantic escapades with two babes,
Sunaina (Ileana D’Cruz) and
Ayesha (
Nargis Fakhri), gets into fisticuffs with Sunaina’s cop beau
Angad (
Arunoday Singh) and gets entangled with Ayesha’s mafia dad
Vikrant (
Anupam Kher) and his gang. What follows is pure mayhem, but all things are sorted out well in the traditional Bollywood style and true lovers unite at the journey’s end. Quite a hilarious flick if you are ready to put logic away for some time and go with the Bollywood flow.
In stark contrast,
Jal portrays a reality as harsh as the arid land of Kutch. Here we have
Bakka (
Purab Kohli), who has the power of divining water spots (does it remind you of
Nana Patekar in
Thodasa Roomani Ho Jaayen?), his sweetheart
Kesar (
Kirti) hailing from a rival village and
animal activist Kim (Saidah Jules). Kim is out to save the
water-starved flamingos, but not too interested to help the clan living there. Set against a stark yet magnificent backdrop,
Jal had all the elements to become an epic tale of love and treachery, hope and hopelessness, apathy and ardour. Instead, viewers are handed out a simplistic story that fails to follow the stream of life (in other words, water) from the past into the future, the way it goes with human history. But the movie is worth the watch because of its
offbeat theme while Purab Kohli literally sets the screen on fire.
Ebn-E-Batuta may remind you of
James Cameron’s
Avatar, but there the similarities end. In this
India-made sci-fi flick, the
aliens have invaded
Planet Earth to conquer it, but three
friends (
Omkar Das Manikpuri,
Dev Gohar and
Satyendra Khare) try and
leverage the power of the
extra-terrestrials for their own advancement. Some social issues and fun moments are also there, but this one hardly matches the Hollywood flicks in terms of special effects. Kids may still enjoy the movie but with
Bhoothnath Returns (starring
Amitabh Bachchan) hitting the theatres on April 11,
Ebn-E-Batuta is not likely to enjoy much exposure at the box office during the second weekend.
Images: Wikipedia
