Its fate was sealed as soon as the holiday period ended, and the film’s collection spiraled from Rs 7-8 crore to a mere Rs 2 crore on Tuesday. “’Laal Singh Chaddha’ had a very low occupancy on Tuesday, ‘Raksha Bandhan’ had even less. It is true that a lot of theatre owners are reducing the shows because there is very less audience. But we are sticking to ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’,” revealed Manoj Desai, Executive director of G7 Multiplex & Maratha Mandir Cinema.
While ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ was expected to trend in the South, it met with dismal numbers there too. A trade expert from Tamil Nadu told ETimes, “‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ will have a total run of only one week. The content is 50 percent good but shows are being cancelled here and soon a Tamil film will replace it in the screens.”
Similar sentiments were echoed by a distributor from the North. “‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ is running steady in the north and right now there is no change. Whatever changes have to happen, it will take place at the time when ‘Liger’ releases next week,” asserted Sanjay Ghai, exhibitor and distributor from Delhi.
Interestingly, Aamir’s loss has emerged as a boon for South film ‘Karthikeya 2’, whose Hindi dubbed version is doing wonders at the box office. The film initially faced difficulty in getting screens with ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ and ‘Raksha Bandhan’ occupying most. But going by the audience’s response, distributors are investing in the film now and there is a growth in screens.
Giving a perspective on the sudden growth of ‘Karthikeya 2′, trade analyst Amod Mehra said, “’Karthikeya 2’ released on Saturday due to lack of screens, which were occupied by ‘LSC’, ‘Raksha Bandhan’ and a couple of Telugu films. This film didn’t get even 50 shows across India. ‘Karthikeya 2’ got one show at the Gossip theatre in Mumbai, which has seating capacity of about 100 people. I don’t know how the public got to know about the film because there was not much publicity either, but the 4 pm show was full. After that wherever this film was screening, the shows gradually started filling up. Noticing this trend, after the three days, almost every multiplex in the city has booked four shows per day for ‘Karthikeya 2’. The time slots of the cancelled shows of Hindi films were given to this dubbed movie.”
Confirming the same, Manoj Desai said, “It is surprising that the Hindi dubbed version of South film ‘Karthikeya 2’ is running full shows. We have increased the number of shows of the film.”
Summing up Bollywood’s disappointing run at the box office, an exhibitor, on condition of anonymity said, “As there are not many options, we are playing ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’, although the occupancy is very poor. We have nothing else to show in our cinemas right now. The rate at which Bollywood films are failing,
humko toh dubbed film aur South ka hi sahara hai (We are left at the mercy of dubbed and South movies).”
‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ has earned a total of Rs 48 crore in six days.
