Bollywood asianculturevulture vibes: Monsoon blues but one film leaps forward massively…

August was a busy month at the box office; some failed, many gained and there was one big surprise…

By Rodrigues C 

WELCOME from a hot and humid Mumbai. The city is preparing to get into its busy festive period starting with Dahi Handi and Ganesh Chaturthi next month followed by Diwali. Strangely, August, a monsoon month in India, witnessed almost no rains.

Thanks to the July downpour the city’s drinking water reservoirs are 96 per cent full bringing a big relief. Let’s hit the movie trail. 

August was supposed to be the month for superstar Yash’s much-awaited ‘Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups’ but Emraan Hashmi’s ‘Awarapan 2’ and several South Indian releases also made headlines.  

‘Toxic’, directed by Geetu Mohandas and co-starring Kiara Advani and Nayanthara, arrived in cinemas on August 26, a Wednesday. The Kannada-language gangster action film opened to a massive £10.6 million worldwide. Unexpectedly, Thursday saw a massive downfall with collections of just about £2.9m. Day 3 was even worse with just over £2.1m in collections. At the weekend, its first at the box office, didn’t have any positive news either with collection dwindling to £1.8m this Saturday (August 29) and £1.7m on Sunday. The film’s first week collections now stand at £22m lower than Ram Charan’s ‘Peddi’, which had made £24.4m in just five days. Budgeted around £31-46m, the film’s box office numbers will surely fall further in the coming days. But it will still make a profit to its producers thanks to its OTT sale which has fetched it £18.2m, reportedly.  
The August 14 clash between ‘Awarapan 2’ and ‘Batwara 1947’ became another major box-office story.  

The former opened to a modest £1.7m. Audiences liked the movie and the following day’s collections rose to £2.6m. But Sunday (August 16) saw a fall in collections, £2m. As things stand, the film’s worldwide haul is £16.2m, which could be purely due to the nostalgia associated with the first instalment. Interestingly, this 2007 version was a box office failure but somehow gained a cult following over the years. It’s also rare for a box failure to have a sequel and that too after a gap of 19 years. Very little was spent on making ‘Awarapan 2’, a little more than £3m, which made the film a highly profitable venture. The numbers must have surely surprised even the film’s producers. Way to go Hashmi!  

On the other hand, the period drama ‘Batwara 1947’, directed by Rajkumar Santoshi and produced by Aamir Khan, opened on August 14 to a poor box office debut. Its opening day collection stood at a paltry £465,000. But surprisingly August 15 saw a jump with collections touching £1m. The next day, a Sunday saw the collections drop to £562,000. The second week didn’t bring good news to the film either and collections now stand at £4.1m for a film which is believed to be budgeted around £11.6m. Though ‘Toxic’ didn’t live up to expectations, South Indian movies made their mark at the Indian box office in August.  

Telugu star Ravi Teja’s ‘Irumudi’ crossed the ₹150 Crore (£11m) milestone within its first ten days of release in India alone.  

The Shiva Nirvana directorial, which explores the emotional relationship between a father and daughter, has grossed about £13.1m worldwide.  

Tamil family entertainer ‘Vishwanath and Sons’ with Suriya and Mamitha Baiju, has done good business as well, opening to a modest £1.2m on August 14. The movie, which follows the life of an international shooter – who faces ageing, family responsibilities and an unexpected romance – has now collected more than £10m worldwide.  

Tamil crime thriller ‘DC’, which marked director and screenwriter Lokesh Kanagaraj’s acting debut, released on August 7 and has already collected a robust £7.7m; its budgeted at just about £2m.

‘7 Dogs’, an Arabic action thriller that also stars Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt in cameos alongside Egyptian actors Karim Abdel Aziz and Ahmed Ezz hit theatres on August 21. The film was originally released in May in other countries. The fact that two of India’s biggest stars featured in the movie gave it a lot of traction here but when it came to the box office the thriller could only manage to earn £132,000 at the box office.

Now, the best for the last.

The biggest surprise of the month was a £155,000 movie, which made a massive profit. ‘Hanuman Ansh’(pictured at the top) released on August 7 and collected just £7,757 on day one. During the next two weeks, the film made £114,000. But for some reason on day 17, it collected £170,000, altogether totalling £806,000 that week. On August 21, the film collected an unpresented £484,000 on a single day, it’s now minted £3.6m.  

Written and directed by Vishal Chaturvedi, the spiritual drama is inspired by the life and teachings of Neem Karoli Baba, also known as Maharaj Ji; Shobhinaw Satyaa plays the lead. This spiritual figure (1900-1973) was hugely influential and has a following in the US with the late Steve Jobs, the founder of company Apple and Hollywood star, Julia Roberts, among his western devotees. For now, no one has answers to how the movie went on this trajectory – it appears not to have had a huge marketing budget behind it – but word of mouth and continuing promotion has kept it in theatres and more report full houses and growing interest. As we wind up, several articles are being written about this phenomenal success story. Catch you in September with a lot of festive flavours.