Category - Answers

Q. Can Akshay Kumar cross 300 crore if he gets a universal script like BB or PK on an Eid or Christmas weekend? A. We have already seen that a film released during IPL (April end) has crossed 500 crore in Hindi and a film that released during Eid has fallen short of even 150 crore. So it’s not just about the weekend, but the star cast, budget and more importantly the concept and treatment of the film (which has to be universal). Akshay formula of making low budget films, shooting them in quick time, without a popular female star.. is not going to generate enough excitement all over. Also, inspite of his big success in the last couple of years, his films haven’t really opened to a big response. Both ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ which had the worst campaign in recent times (nothing worked except one or two songs) and ‘Tubelight’ took significantly better opening. The case was the same with ‘Jolly LLB 2’, what with the trade expecting 15-20 crore opening, but the film falling well short of that. So unless the opening numbers of 20-25 crore come, those big grossers will be out of reach. A film can’t get from 12 cr on Day 1 to 250-300 lifetime. Q. Tiger Zinda Hai, Robot 2.0, Thugs of Hindostan, Srk dwarf….. which is the biggest and safest movie? A. The biggest among these in terms of budget is ‘Robot 2.0’. None are safe because the budgets are high and they need to be good films to work. The Dwarf film is the riskiest. Q. You said that Remo is not a good director but his movies like Faltu, both abcd were fairly entertaining and very popular among youth. And nowadays big directors are failing and average directors are punching above weight. So don’t u think u are underestimating Remo? A. We can only state our opinion here. ‘Faltu’ was a decent film, ABCD 1 and 2 can’t be called well-directed films, it worked because of dance and the second had a good star cast too. ‘A Flying Jatt’ was a terribly bad film. It’s not true that average directors are producing good films. The bigger directors have failed because of the type of films they have been choosing. We think Abbas-Mustan were better choices and we hope they do not compromise somewhere to get the film ready for Eid next year. Even though ‘Race’ is a big franchise and safer than the previous film that Remo and Salman were planning, it would still need to be a good film. Thrash will be rejected these days, a fairly entertaining film will survive. Q. Is the buzz of Judwaa 2 decreasing due to total copy of old film ? A. It’s the same old case of a good trailer being ruined by songs. The songs clearly haven’t worked the way they were expected to and a section of audience is disliking the songs. But we still think ‘Judwaa 2’ is too big a film to do anything less than 70-80 crore at the box office. It has a lot of holidays, so the film should be through in the first extended weekend itself – unless the opening is well below expectations. Q. Deepika is huge female superstar but her own movies not opened well at the box office so in terms of stardom is Varun bigger star than Deepika? A. Definitely bigger. Female stars in the industry, with all due respect to them, are not crowd pullers. Anushka is one of the top stars we have, but her film ‘Phillauri’ opened at 4 crore and even that was driven by Diljit Dosanj’s popularity in the north. Punjab was the biggest earner for the film, above Mumbai which was the biggest circuit. Even Delhi/UP was better than Mumbai. And all this was because of Diljit’s presence. We don’t mean to take any credit away from the actresses in the industry, they add tremendous value to the big films.. but crowd-pullers on their own is something they aren’t. Q. Can Tiger Zinda Hai be the highest grosser of all time? A. No point asking such questions, they cannot be answered. If it’s an extraordinary action film, it definitely has chances of beating Dangal. There is tremendous potential for the action genre in India. Q. Who was the superstar or came close to being a superstar? Anil Kapoor, Sunny Deol, Govinda, Sanjay Dutt? A. Sunny Deol, by some distance as compared to others. He was a major star, who, given the fact that he still looks good, had the potential to achieve a lot more Post-Gadar. Choice of films let him down and his films simply didn’t appeal to the newer multiplex generation. Q. Why is it that Anurag Kashyap is overly rated in media and Rohit Shetty undermined? I mean a lot of people love Rohit rather than Anurag but why is media so cruel? A. That’s the problem with the section of media and journalists who consider themselves to be a part of the elite group of intellectuals. There’s a big disconnect between them and those leading normal lives.  They think their intellect is far too superior to like films that Rohit Shetty makes, which the audience likes. But the thrash that Anurag Kashyap produces is called a masterpiece, which the audience doesn’t even relate to. The style of filmmaking has to be Indian. The audience that want to watch films that Anurag / Imtiaz etc make, can watch superior films from Hollywood and other international film industries. After all, a month long subscription of Netflix has far better rom-coms as compared to ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’. The point of watching that film is Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma, but 99% of the audience do not like watching them in these romantic comedies with ‘world-appealing’ treatment. The industry in general needs to stop wasting money on filmmakers like Anurag, Vishal Bhardwaj etc.. the likes of Shoojit Sircar and Aanand L Rai are far better. Q. What is the current status of Baadshaho? Can it emerge a hit? What is your worst case scenario analysis on this? A. Baadshaho is below average / flop. Q. Ajay Devgn said he never had a low phase in his career. Your take? A. It’s true. For some actors, the success ratio makes no difference. One flop for Salman or Shah Rukh or Aamir is discussed and remembered for months, whereas actors like Ajay and Akshay move on very quickly from failures. It could be because of lower budgets, faster pace of working and signing new films. Shivaay and Baadshaho have failed, but Ajay now has a big film like Golmaal Again, which should work and all will be well again. If the next two after Golmaal don’t work, he has a Singham to bank on. Q. Indicine is 7 December 2018 is confirmed release date for Namaste Canada? A. Yes. Arjun Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra. Q. Firstly congratulations as you’re back to your awesome predictions getting on target. Your site is probably the most reliable and accurate site like a gold standard :) I would want to know your opinion on Raees collections. Yes it didn’t perform as well as the distributor price was high, but don’t you think getting 139 cr in the month of Jan without a festive release, with a clash against a big movie is a MASSIVE achievement and also became a Semi Hit. Also is Raees still the highest grosser of the year? Thanks and keep rocking! A. Raees is still the highest grosser of the year. It’s certainly a decent lifetime total, but for the kind of promos and pre-release hype, Raees had chances of crossing the 200 crore mark if it was a better film. It had the best promos in recent times and a terrific cast. The director was the problem. Q. Does Cricket Matches still affect films or is it just a myth now? A. Big matches do affect film business, especially key world cup matches featuring India. It depends on the match itself and how exciting the contest is.. when television ratings for the cricket matches are high, footfalls at theatres are lower. It’s more significant for bigger films, which have seen a drop when cricket matches take place. The negative impact of IPL has reduced. Q. With audience becoming extremely choosy, do you think it will help big films like TZH, Golmaal 4 get extra audience and earn much more than they would have in normal circumstances? A. The bigger films will definitely start getting higher share of revenue. It was the case before also, but now with the audience getting choosier, the better films will start earning more. If promos are as good or better than ‘Ek Tha Tiger’, it could get pretty crazy for ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’. The stills they have released are already looking brilliant, now they have to back it up with a big-impact trailer. Q. Hi guys! My first time asking a question. From Turkey! As an educated and business person I don’t understand how corporates and production houses in India can release some movies. I mean some of them are so bad that starting from scripting stage till acting and editing. Even music. I mean how do they approve the songs. Cant they say to music composers, no it is not good enough I want better… or do they think they are good. Some songs are sooo bad I cant see anybody paying and approving them… Or is it just easy to say than doing? I feel like most of the movies could have been done better with some well planned schedule and hard work! A. Most of these corporates do not understand the Indian audience. When a film like ‘Rangoon’ is paid the kind of money it got, it’s surprising. What was even more surprising was Sajid Nadiadwala producing that kind of movie. It’s difficult to understand why, but even banners like Yash Raj Films headed by a very like Aditya Chopra is losing what we call ‘knowing the pulse of the audience’. This is the same director who made films like DDLJ and Mohabbatein and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. It is the same banner that dominated the early 2000s with back-to-back hits. People would see YRF as the banner and go watch films. Now they are dependent on Salman and Aamir, who will obviously squeeze out the profits. None of their smaller films are working, in fact most are becoming major disasters. So when a banner like YRF is going wrong, it’s not even worth discussing the other corporate banners that are heading by professionals. About songs, not every song can be good, but we do not need so many songs in films and we do not need to show full 3 minute long song videos before release. But music rights is big money and companies like T-Series make money from the song promos. But when everyone sees their own benefit and plays safe, what is reducing is the value that a film ticket provides. All this results in reduced ticket sales. There is a year-on-year downfall in footfalls at theatres, 2017 is dismal without Bahubali 2. Q. It is a boring scenario. There is not much to talk about when there is no film recently released or will be releasing soon of any superstar. The fate of the other movies are almost sealed after the trailer is released. Most of the songs are remixed version of old songs, no chartbuster song in a good while. I do miss a good old romantic movies or a good action movie with a young hero. Someone with karisma. The heroes from young generation havent actually created the mass hysteria, and I think its too late for them.. I’ve loved indian movies, but now, I dont even bother to stream them for free. Not that I’ve lost interest, but there is nothing interesting to watch. Where do you see the industry in 10 years, if nothing changes? A. You summed it up actually, none of the upcoming films look interesting or exciting is the biggest problem. The 10 year outlook is pretty bleak as the industry hasn’t yet produced someone worthy enough to be called a superstar after Hrithik Roshan (year 2000) and the guys who are ruling are those who made their debut 25-27 years ago. So the biggest are actually the oldest. Just a look at Judwaa 2 promos makes everything clear. Watch the old promos, Salman was natural, charismatic and brilliant in the tapori character. Varun simply doesn’t match up, which wasn’t the case with his previous films but it could be because of the burden of expectations and obvious comparisons with Salman. The industry is still star-driven – the other smaller films that are called hits, aren’t watched by 99.9% of the population (i.e a film like Bareilly Ki Barfi was only watched by around 0.15% of the Indian population in theatres) – whereas a film like Bahubali 2 was watched by 9-10% of the population. That’s a massive difference between the biggest hit and the smaller hits.  So unless we produce big stars or massive films (which become very risky without bankable stars).. we aren’t quite sure how the industry will survive after Salman, Aamir, SRK, Akshay are done. They need to either retain their star power beyond the age of 60 or the industry needs to get its next sensation. Q. How much credit will be given to Akshay Kumar for the success and collections of Robot 2.0 in Hindi? He is the big face from North (presently the 3rd biggest crowdpuller), while some ppl claim it will be only Rajini film and not Akshay’s coz he is playing a villain. What do you say? A. It’s unfair to call him the 3rd biggest crowd puller, when SRK will easily better him on Day 1 and even weekend with mixed word-of-mouth film. He is certainly the 3rd biggest star when it comes to current standing in the industry. That aside, the credit for the Hindi collections of Robot 2.0 will go to Akshay. South (Andhra/Karnataka and lower) obviously, it’ll be Rajnikanth’s show. How big can Akshay make the film in the North, Central and East of India will be what we’d be looking at. Q. What are the box office prospects of Lucknow Central? How is the buzz and how much can it collect? A. Very poor, there’s no interest to watch the film. It’ll open slow, rest is content dependent. Q. I feel Akshay couldn’t attain those big numbers at b.o. due the quality which is compromised for the quantity of the film’s he does. If he reduce quantity and focus on more quality than now can he get big grossers . Your views please A. Not every actor is into the number game, certainly not Akshay. When everything is going right and he has cracked a strategy that has him doing low budget films that can be completed in quick time.. he has no reason to change it. Increase in the quantity is of huge importance to the industry, especially the trade, exhibitors. If they had to made a choice, they’d pick 6-8 Akshay films in 2 years over 1 big Aamir film during the same period. It’s a no-brainer. It’s between Salman and Akshay at the moment actually, even without Akshay performing at record-levels. If Salman can sustain his level and do two films every year, there’s nothing better than that. Q. Buzz for Simran? Has Kangana’s “promotions” worked? A. She has opted for quite possibly the most shameless form of film promotion in recent times. She has also used the media pretty well, but the audience is not dumb. They’ll come to theatres only if the film is worth a watch in theatres. However, if the film was good indeed good, Kangana probably would’ve have needed this sort of promotion. Q. Any confirmed news on KRRISH 4’s release date? And how big the ‘KRRISH’ brand is? Hrithik should do a commercial movie now and probably Krrish is the best choice. Your comment please. A. There’s nothing confirmed about Krrish 4, no release date yet. The brand is huge, especially at smaller centres. At major multiplexes and ‘class centres’ it’s probably weakened a little – if we compare Krrish 3 to the first two films in the series. With the right release date and budget, it would still be one of the biggest films of the year. Q. So now Indicine has started directly insulting directors and even the audience, giving them advice to watch “world cinema” at Netflix instead of Bollywood films. Who the hell are you to give advice to the audience who likes class cinema?? Btw, Directors like Rohit Shetty and Karan Johar can do shit without big stars in their movies. It’s always a big star who saves their ass. Anurag Kashyap movies dont ‘connect’ with the audience?? Yeah sure, and Rohit Shetty’s flying cars ‘connect’ very well I guess?? Do you even know what does it means by ‘connecting’ with the audience?? A. The ‘connect’ with the audience means, films that do well at the box office. If films are liked, it’ll reflect in the collections because people are paying to watch. Sure, a Rohit Shetty and Karan Johar might need stars, but directors like Anurag Kashyap and Vishal Bhardwaj can ruin the career of stars.. like we’ve seen with films like Bombay Velvet and even Jab Harry Met Sejal. As for ‘who the hell are we to give advice’ – we are not advising them, but stating our opinion on our website  to our readers. Q. How is “Secret Superstar” shaping up to be? What is the actual buzz so far & how appealing can it be? How will it affect Golmaal’s collection?? & lastly 2 films in 2 months for Ajay Devgan.. Will it affect Golmaal much as far as Ajay’s core fan base is concerned? A. The interest for the film is steady, not too high not too low. Perfect space for the film to take a decent opening on the strength of Aamir’s name and then take it from there. It’s a great release date for a film like Secret Superstar. It’s difficult to say if it’ll affect Golmaal collection. It shouldn’t, unless Secret Superstar is a masterpiece and Golmaal Again is trashy. It’s a similar scenario to Welcome and Taare Zameen Par. Q. Is Baadshaho is profitable to distributer? A. No. They’ll lose around 8 crore. Q. Ayushman khurana is a Fantastic actor but he cannot termed as a superstar.What types of movie he had to do to be a superstar. A. His films are limited to cities and are word-of-mouth dependent. The success of ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi’ and ‘Shubh Mangal Saavdhan’ will help him, but ‘superstar’ is something that even far biggest crowd-pullers like Ranbir and Varun haven’t attained. Q. I m not going to participate in further QnA session if I not got my answer this time is their any film targeting Xmas 2018 along with SRK if yes then which actor? A. How do we answer questions for which there are no answers? Right now no one has targeted. The release is too far away. For now it’s a solo release for Christmas. Q. INDICINE Plz reply! Who is most discussed actor in all Ask Indicine Sessions?? Plz answer otherwise it would be clear that you people r not replying to Pakistani Fans!! A. It’s usually SRK / Salman. But in the last few months, lot of questions related to Akshay. Q. Does Shahid Kapoor has any advantage over any new comer as in Does he need to invent his career same as a newcomer in industry or his past has any advantage that can take his quality or accepted content movie somewhere . I feel he should have been doing film’s like bareily ki barfi and shubh mangal savdhan . Your views please A. A lot has already been spoken about Shahid Kapoor in previous QnA’s. He’s always been promising talent, which explains why he continues to get films even though none of his films have even crossed the 70 crore mark. He’s struggling only because of his choice of films – which can make or break even a talented actor. Q. Why is it that good films like SMS and BKB struggle to collect big nos across India? Is it because Teir 2 and Tier 3 cities and villages prefer only to watch good films of BIG stars. Also these films have collected very well in Metros. Is it because Metro audiences are more willing to accept good content even with not so popular stars? Hence in totatility is it fair to conclude that if you want to have a big Pan india successful film STARS+CONTENT is mandatory and the presence of only 1 of the 2 will not ensure BIG success? A. It’s because of lack of face value. You ask anyone if he / she would want to watch a film and the first question would be.. who are the actors. If their names are not appealing enough or sometimes unheard of, then people won’t spend on movie tickets to watch the film. That’s what differentiates the big stars from the rest. Toilet:Ek Prem Katha doesn’t really have a ‘big film’ feel to it, but because it features someone like Akshay Kumar, a larger section of the audience feels it is worth spending on his films. The same film with Ayushman and business would be cut by 75%. Even at multiplexes, people are reluctant to spend on films with smaller stars, unless the film is very good and falls in the recommended / must watch category. Q. How is the buzz if the judwaa 2 right now and can it touch 20cr opening and above 60cr weekend? A. 20 looks difficult. With better songs and promos, it had a chance. Q. This is going to be a longish question, so bear with me. I’ve been a patron to this site and am deeply disappointed by some glaring inconsistency in your articles off late. Let me start – 1) Tubelight was sold at a price of Rs 135 crore. The recovery cost was estimated at around 250 cr. It bundled up under 115 cr, hence the distributor share was around 57 cr. One can clearly see the ginormous loss here. JHMS was sold at 70 cr. The recovery cost was estimated at around 150 cr. It wounded up under 60 cr hence the distributor share will be around 30 cr. The loss is definitely there but minimal as compared to Tubelight. Let me add, these are figures from trade websites only. Now in what universe is JHMS a disaster and Tubelight just a flop? You’ve yourself termed Tubelight a ‘colossal failure’ in one of your articles, is that an euphemism for flop or disaster? In fact sticking to the same topic till date you’ve not written an article on the verdict of Tubelight but had been ultra quick to describe the debacle of JHMS. Why? In terms of money lost Tubelight is probably a much bigger failure than JHMS, then why is the latter a disaster and former a flop? 2) I’ve often observed you quoting figures of SRK and Salman films with a slight change of texture in your voice. In articles, more than one, I’ve seen you saying “FAN collected 19.52 crore on a partial holiday of Ram Navami, real value of which comes out to be 15 cr”. Why’s there a need to calculate the “real value” of a movie, let alone a SRK one? If thats the way to go why have I never seen you quoting the “real value” of Tubelight on Eid, which was a full-fledged holiday, released on a good 1000 screens more than FAN and ended up collecting almost 50 lakhs lesser than the SRK-starrer? In fact you factored in the Pre-Eid dullness and said the opening day value of Tubelight is actually 24 cr, a good 3 cr higher than what it collected. Now these kind of articles throw me off-guard because then I start questioning myself whether I’m being a fed a neutral narrative here or not. Look, I’m a SRK fan but that doesn’t mean I’ve to hate and belittle any other actor. I’ve never done it and will never do so. I just don’t come from that school of thought. All I’m saying is that the above observations have baffled and saddened me in equal measure. I hope all my concerns will be addressed with the same semblance of rationalism and sensibility that I tried to exhibit. Thank you! A. We’d have to do an entire article for this, but we are going to keep it short. One, the economics of two films cannot be compared, more so when Salman covered a huge chunk of the losses and returned it back to the distributors. Jab Harry Met Sejal is a huge disaster every which way it’s looked at. The distributors lost huge money and purely from theatrical business point-of-view, a big star cast film, with the kind of money spent on producing it.. lifetime business of 60 crore is disastrous. Tubelight collected almost double of that. About your second point on ‘real value’, it’s a norm in the industry. A full holiday can give films as much as 35-50% advantage. Ramzan or Pre Diwali release affects film business too. There’s no hate for SRK or any other actor here. That’s the end of QnA for today. Thank you for joining us.

Q. Salman’s under-performer crossed 1 crore footfalls and 100 crore at box office, is this the lower limit for a Salman Khan starrer under any circumstances? A. There is no lower limit for any star in today’s times. The limit depends on the film itself. ‘Tubelight’ was niche, but that film had something in it for the smaller centre audience like emotions. But if he attempts an off-beat film for the multiplex audience under the wrong director, then the chances of falling below the 100 crore mark become high. If he sticks to commercial entertainers and doesn’t alienate a huge section of his fanbase in smaller centres, his films should easily be earning 150 crore plus – even if critics and the so called ‘thinking audience’ write it off. Q. How have the single screens performed for Toilet?is it the best of the year?can we now conclude-Akshay Kumar is a ‘One Man Industry’? A. Single-screens have done well and sustained in the second week too. Best of the year is Bahubali 2, followed by Raees, Toilet and Badrinath Ki Dulhania. We wonder who came up with these terms like ‘One Man Industry’ for today’s stars? ‘One Man Industry’ means one actor is performing at a different level altogether compared to other superstars in the industry. It was true during the Amitabh Bachchan era when the footfalls for his films were significantly higher than the rest. The initials were huge and people just came to watch the star, who was bigger than the film itself. The closest we’ve seen any other actor come to that level was when ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’, ‘Prem Ratan Dhan Payo’ and ‘Sultan’ released within a period of less than one year and generated close to 9.5 crore footfalls. A better way to describe Akshay would be ‘Parallel Industry’. He’s very consistent at a lower level, but what really works for him is quantity (number of films) and getting the economics of his films right. Q. On paper which film looks riskier. Toilet or Padman? And why? A. Definitely Padman. The story of the film sounds quite risky on paper, especially for the audience at smaller centres where such issues are not openly discussed or spoken about in public. So it’ll be about treatment. If the style of narration, like Toilet:EPK, is entertaining, then it has high chances of becoming another success for Akshay. We’ll know better once the trailer is out. Q. You never answer my question..I have posted this question for several times. Rank in order of acting ability and popularity – Ranbir, Arjun, Ranveer, Varun, Sidharth, Sushant, Ayushamnn, Rajkumar Rao, Tiger Shroff, Aditya Roy Kapoor? A. Popularity: Varun (advantage over Ranbir at smaller centres and children), Ranbir, Ranveer, Sidharth, Arjun, Tiger, Ayushman, Sushant, Aditya Roy Kapur. Acting: Ranbir, Ranveer, Ayushmann, Varun, Arjun, Sushant, Aditya, Tiger. We are not including Rajkumar Rao, he doesn’t belong to the commercial space. He’s a terrific actor, but we haven’t yet seen him in mainstream commercial roles. Q. Do you think TEPK trade figures are manipulated? A. No comments. No one wants accurate numbers. We prefer to stick to analysis, judging trends and predictions on the website. Q. According to IMDb Best ever Indian Movie is Anand (1971), Do you Agree? A. It’s subjective and it’s not right to compare the ratings of two movies either. There are people who believe 3 Idiots is the greatest movie of all time, there are others who say DDLJ or Sholay. There’s no way to compare those movies, no valid points to debate and prove that the other is better. Q. Can SRK choose good scripts in his future films? Sadly I feel SRK is going Kambli n Ganguly way….how Sachin overshadowed them even though they were way ahead in runs than Sachin… A. The cricket comparison doesn’t make sense, the man has already achieved way too much to call him anything less than a legend. However, we can only give our opinion, it need not necessarily be the truth. We think the core team around him who have created that bubble of greatness, that he can do no wrong and his stardom will carry him through, is to be blamed for his extended poor run. Else, how can an actor who was the top choice of every director in the industry, go so wrong in the last 4-5 years? He actually has very little to show in terms of outstanding films in the 10 years after Chak De India. None of his films have clicked on television either, which shows the masses and family audience are simply not connecting with the kind of films he does. Rajkumar Hirani wanted to sign him for almost every film that he’s directed so far (not including PK, which he probably would’ve done if he had accepted 3 Idiots). Hopefully things change now after JHMS, it’s a huge reality check because that film has fallen even below Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar and Tamasha. The tragedy is, even in a terrible film like JHMS he delivered a very good performance, so he’s wasting both his stardom and talent with scripts that he should not even have been approved in the first place. Q. What will be the collections of Toilet Ek Prem Katha if it had release on any normal weekend? A. Around 10-15% lower. Q. Why have you changed Kaabil life time collection from 100+ CR to 95 in your latest article? A. The collections have been fetched from the distributors of the film and have also been verified with circuit wise numbers. It includes collections from regional versions too. The numbers that Rakesh Roshan was quoting was probably gross and we don’t net (after tax) numbers here. Q. What’s the prospect of Shubh Mangal Sawdhan as again it’s looks like film based on a very dear and bold subject. A. It’s a sensitive topic. Will men venture out to see the film is a question. But there’s a lot of interest to watch the film. It’s a small film too, so doesn’t need to collect much. It’ll be about word-of-mouth. Q. Is Akshay Kumar bigger star than SRK? In terms of stardom in India? A. Not really.  Shah Rukh is far bigger in terms of stardom, and he’ll get those bigger initials and lifetime totals too. Even now when there’s big negativity against him, his films are opening. But even Salman was a bigger star in the 2000s than many other actors in the industry, but when you don’t do the right films, the audience and even fans won’t come. Given the kind of all-India pull that he has, if Shah Rukh doesn’t have those 300-350 crore grossers, he only has himself to blame. The audience is there, but where are those wholesome entertainers that he used to do a decade ago? Q. Race 3 happening with Salman Khan ? Whose the director ? What about that Dance Draa with Remo ? A. Official announcement soon. Q. Don’t you think credit must go to Akshay Kumar for taking ‘Toilet Ek Prem Katha’ to super-hit zone because the word of mouth of the movie was not that positive. Don’t you think that Akshay Kumar regained the trust of multiplex audience? A. Entirely his credit, although the director did his job pretty well too. But to take a small film like ‘Toilet: Ek Prem Katha’ to 130-135 crore lifetime is a big deal. Q. Which films had a better word-of-mouth Jolly LLB 2 or Toilet? Who’s a bigger star Akshay or Hrithik. A. Almost equal, Jolly LLB 2 and Toilet.  Akshay is the bigger star right now. Hrithik is wasting his stardom. Q. You always talk about the reason behind films not doing well as being other entertainment options available like Amazon and Netflix, while I do agree with that, I also think it’s a small contributor. I think the major reason is the failure of the makers to realize the audience have evolved rapidly to the point if the film doesn’t have good content ,it won’t work, doesn’t matter if it’s a big film with Superstars or small with unknowns and to ensure that happens we need to empower the writers, to get good scripts rather than spending all the money on the hubris of so called “superstars”. Another big reason is Hollywood, the multiplex audience have access to Hollywood event films with action and special effects, why would the go and watch the done to death romcoms like jhms, unless we try new things it will continue or even get worse, thoughts? A. One of the biggest reasons is the gradual alienation of audience in small cities. Even the biggest of directors who were once making films for the entire country are now restricting their films to 4-city audience. We would just like to quote some lines from a Raj Kapoor interview from 1976. It’s important for some of our filmmakers to read this. Raj Kapoor said “By and large my experiences have been with cinema, not drawing-room cinema. I make cinema for the people, millions of people are going to see a film I make. So I make so-called commercial films, successful films which people pay to see time and time again. I am not an intellectual, not even a pseudo-intellectual, I don’t profess to be one. But I want to do films, using the little knowledge I’ve got, that can appeal to many more people rather than just a few. That’s why I have never been put into the ranks of intellectual or new-wave cinema” “Cinema must please the people. It is a medium that has got to affect people, masses, millions, and if this medium is wrongly used, then, well there are other mediums. The artist should switch. He can become a painter, a composer, a writer, or a poet. I am sure if you went to a cinema with a seating capacity of 1,500, and you saw two people sitting there and watching the picture, you will say the man who made this film is balooney or the man who is running the film is balooney, but actually it is the two who are sitting there who are really balooney” He pretty much sums it up and his words were from 1970s. The metro city audience today are exposed to variety of films and our mediocrity will be rejected outright. The smaller centre audience is still open to heartland films and entertainers, films like Toilet, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Dangal will work while they won’t even understand films like Jab Harry Met Sejal, Tamasha or Rangoon. If you want to make such films, sure you can, but you can’t shoot such films overseas and cast major stars who command a huge acting fee. The budget goes up, but the audience is almost non-existent outside those 4-5 cities – where anything less than good films will be rejected in the first weekend itself. Q. TEPK was a best WOM for Akshay in recent times.But it is not looking to collect 200 crs.What it will take Akshay’s movie to collect those huge numbers,where Aamir & Salman are 300 crs club, Ranbir,Ranvir,SRK, Hrithik have already had 200 crs or near to it & that to 3 to 4 years ago. I know Robot 2 is coming but apart from that movie how can Akshay get huge grosser. A. If he aspires to get those big grossers, he needs to do big films too. Most of his films today are low budget, content driven and most do not even have a popular female star. That could be the reason. But why his films do not get those big initials on Friday morning is a mystery. The starting level of his films have been stagnating around the 10-12 crore mark for several years now. Only if that goes closer to the 20 crore mark can the big grossers come. Q. If movies do well in North India Delhi/UP , it trends really well. Looking at TEP trends was it not expected it will trend like TWMR and do over 40 cr 2nd week? Has annabelle and bareily ki barfi reduced atleast 8-10 cr from TEPK 2nd week ? A. All India trends cannot be ascertained by how one circuit is performing. Tax exemption in UP played a major role too. The word-of-mouth was nowhere close to Tanu Weds Manu Returns, that was quite clear in the first weekend itself. It was better in the north, but we could sense from multiplex audience in cities that not everyone was liking the film – especially the more important second half. Whatever the lifetime total, Toilet Ek Prem Katha is still a huge hit and has come at a time when the industry was struggling – which makes its success even more important. Annabelle and Bareilly haven’t really impacted the business of Toilet Ek Prem Katha by 8-10 crore. The trend is normal for the word-of-mouth that it’s carrying. Q. Not exactly a Srk fan,but some times when I read comments from other posters like SRK is over or Varun is ahead of SRK etc..I feel those comments should be moderated by the site or removed as it degrades the quality of the site.SRK is some one who has revolutionized this industry.In an era when lead actors were supposed to be macho super humans he was not afraid to play an psychpath and shutterer in Darr or a anti hero in bazigaar or a loser in kabhi haa kabhi naa.I will not comment on how he revolutionized romance in 90’s as it is a well documented fact will only focus on his experimental roles.In 2000’s he did two of the best movies of his career IE Swadesh (which lead to reverse brain drain) and Chakde India ( which focus on two neglected sections of the society IE women empowerment and hockey our national sport).He did both this movies when others super stars were to busy doing commercial flicks.HIs Don series were also not just normal Bollywood action flick they had a Hollywood feel to it. I think the after RA 1 his actual downfall started and quality of his movies greatly fell down. Still for whatever he has done for the industry being an outsider he deserves respect. A. While we agree with what you said, but we cannot moderate or delete differing opinions. Comments section is for people to freely express what they feel. Q. What is your LBO Prediction of Badshaho, considering there will be bakrid plus weekend and also its buzz has gone a little high after release of its hit music. A. Assuming the word-of-mouth is mixed to good, we think it’ll fall in the range of 65-70 crore i.e 35 crore first weekend and 65 crore lifetime. If the response to the film is outstanding, then anything is possible. Depending on content we’ll change the LBO expectations on first Saturday of its release. Q. I know Akshay is very important for the industry as recently he has been given at least 2-3 hit per year which is impressive. But don’t you think it is disappointing to see him unable to give any major grosser ? Be it mainstream projects (Housefull 3, Singh Is Bling), big budget film (Brothers) or acclaimed content-driven movies (Airlift, Baby, Rustom, Toilet) he has tried everything but still hasn’t crossed 135-140 cr. Don’t you think it is frustrating and it shows he lacks the star power of a major superstar ? A. Not really. The producers, distributors, exhibitors, other investors / those who work on his films, are all happy. There’s no point getting a 135 crore grosser like Raees, if distributors are losing. Same with Tubelight or Dilwale. What really matters is the return on investment, that’s business. Akshay’s working style has limitations. If he does those films that need big sets, big heroines and a lot of time to shoot, the number of films he does will reduce and the budgets will increase. Bigger budget means there’s a chance of bigger grossers, but that comes at the risk of big failure too (Brothers). But with films like Toilet, even if it had fallen well under the 100 crore mark, it would still not hurt. Q. What you think about dream casting of AAMIR & AMITABH in TOH.Will it boost the opening.Will it encourages other producers & directors to make films with dream casting,Big stars working first time together. A. Two major box office stars can’t work together because it can create a lot of issues, including budgets going haywire, date hassles etc. Amitabh Bachchan, with due respect to him, is no longer bankable as a lead hero.. so it allows him to work with the current generation superstars. As for how much additional value for the opening, we can’t really put a number to this. Bachchan + Aamir is a selling point for sure, but everyone would want to watch an Aamir film anyway. Q. GST effect on box office?Is it positive or not good. A. It’s positive in some circuits, negative at others. Overall, there’s a small advantage, but not much. Q. Is SRK depressed after JHMS or he is not thinking about it & working on his next.How will SRK bounce back after huge debacle & not getting clean hits nor able to match AAMIR & SALMAN. A. He must be. He has always maintained a very high standard in the industry. The only way he can bounce back is by making good films. Q. When will you give prediction of Judwaa 2? A. Tomorrow evening, after the trailer of Judwaa is out. Q. Is a 50 crore weekend possible for Judwaa 2? When is the trailer arriving? A. Trailer will be out tomorrow after 1PM. 50 crore weekend is definitely a possibility for Judwaa 2. We expect it to open better than ABCD 2, but we’ll wait for the trailer tomorrow. Q. Plz answer this question. Which one is hard to achieve the kind of trust which Aamir Khan has achieved or the kind of stardom which Salman Khan has achieved. Thank you indicine big fan of ur page from Germany A. Stardom has been achieved before by many stars in the industry. But there hasn’t been anyone like Aamir, atleast we cant think of any. The burden of expectations he carries is immense with every film. The fact that he has delivered and more often than not exceeded those expectations.. sums up his genius. Q. What is the final b.o verdict of Jagga Jasoos, Jab Harry Met Sejal, and Tubelight? A. Flop, Disaster, Flop. Q. What will be the lifefime collections of Tepk? And also is it true that the release date robot2 or 2.0 is postponed to April? A. It should finish at around 130 crore. Maybe a little more if it does well in 3rd Weekend. Robot 2.0 has not been postponed. Q. Akshay Mid 2000’s(Basically 2007) OR Akshay 2016-17, When Was/Is Akshay A Bigger Star In These Two Periods ?? A. In terms of star power, Akshay in the mid 2000s. His films used to get those big opening day and weekend. Now, the quality of films for the multiplex audience has improved. Q. How is Bareilly Ki Barfi trending ? How much does it need to collect to be declared a hit ? A. The trend is good and the film should collect around 11 crore in its first weekend. Monday will decide. It needs around 25 crore. That ends today’s QnA. 30 questions were answered. Thank you for joining us.

AskIndicine Question and Answer session will be held at 6PM today. Post your questions in the comments section below: Q. Top 5 actors currently? A. Current standing – Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan. Q. Which one is bigger flop Tubelight or JHMS A. Jab Harry Met Sejal. Q. Which actors does corporate bookings? How to calculate real value of opening for such actors? A. Most big films. It’s difficult to calculate the exact amount, it’s still ticket sales. Q. Why isn’t Akshay Kumar films opening on Day 1? A. It isn’t a cause for concern as long as his films do well. Akshay Kumar is now becoming a Saturday – Sunday star more than Friday morning. His films are not getting an initial on Friday, but the city audience is coming out in much bigger numbers than ever before on Saturday and Sunday. This could be because of the kind of films he’s doing. Hardcore commercial entertainers like Rowdy Rathore are Friday morning films. Airlift, Rustom, Toilet etc are less commercial, more story/content drive. They get their best day on the last two days of the weekend. The risk with the multiplex city audience is, if the film is not good, they’ll reject it. On the other hand, without the support of multiplexes, films can’t recover their costs. So it’s all about balance in today’s times. Only films that have something in it for everyone will go on to become big grossers. Q. I’ve looked up your list of actors about their movie collections & verdict in that list SRK had zero disasters registered to his name, so is JHMS SRK’s first disaster or is it just a flop? A. Jab Harry Met Sejal is a humongous disaster. The domestic distributors share of the film is going to be less than 30 crore, which is about one-fourth of the landing cost. We have to be looking at the loss incurred by the distributors. If pre-release producer profit is taken into consideration, then a film is a winner even if it collects 10 crore at the domestic box office. Distributor recovery is most important. Also, when you sell a film for a high price, give it a proper showcasing and it has such a big star cast – it has to collect a certain amount.  65-70 crore lifetime is what films like Dear Zindagi are earning and they were sold for a very low price compared to Jab Harry Met Sejal. Such films also have zero satellite value. JHMS is all round failure and there’s no question of defending the genre or ‘nicheness’ of the film either. If the film is niche and has limited audience, you need to plan the budget accordingly and then sell it for a price that justifies. You can’t be setting it up as a commercial blockbuster, get the price you want and then try to create perception that audience is limited for such films. Q. With so many factors going in TEPK favour, superb trailer, good promotion, Akki’s successful streak with good scripts. What will it take for Akshay to give excellent openings he constantly use to give in mid 2000s? A. The trailer was good, but apart from that not much worked in favour of the film. The music did not work, which is important for films to get initial at smaller centres. Promotional campaign was mainly internet centric. The political angle may not really convert into ticket sales. As for the opening, we’ve answered a similar question above. It looks like a change in trend. Audience for Akshay films are coming on Saturday and Sunday, not Friday morning – which is usually the single screen audience or hardcore fans of the actor. Akshay isn’t really doing the kind of films that appeals to his core fan base at smaller towns. Q. What is the future project of Hrithik Roshan and what is the current status of super 30 and Krrish 4? A. No update. A rumoured Hrithik Roshan film and him officially signing the film, is comparable to the beginning and end of a marathon. Most of his rumoured films, don’t happen. And sometimes even the films that he’s at the last stage of finalisation, fall through. Krrish 4 is happening, but there’s time. Q. Who is the best comedy movies director. Rohit Shetty, Anees Bazmee, David Dhawan, Priyadarshan, arrange them according to your view.. All have blockbuster movies on Comedy Genre. A. Our pick in order of preference. David Dhawan, Priyadarshan, Anees Bazmee, Rohit Shetty. Q. Please analyse the kind of movies Akshay has opted for in last 2 yrs and even coming time. Where do u see him in terms of quality of movies all with different subjects? A. Akshay is playing a very smart game. If an actor is intelligent, it has to show in his work and in Akshay’s case, his smartness is in his choice of films. He knows very well that doing big expensive films is time consuming and even getting dates of a top actress means a lot of adjustments and messy schedules. It doesn’t suit his style of functioning. He knows aiming to do what Salman / Aamir do can be very risky. One film like Tubelight can bring distributors / sub-distributors to the streets. With films like Toilet or Jolly LLB 2 or Padman, the risk is limited.  They can be shot in quick time, he can make his money, he can afford to give the audience / fans something new in terms of content and if it clicks – his films can be very profitable for all involved, including him. It’s been working for the last two years, so no point trying to change something that’s working so well for you. He will continue to experiment and maybe do one big film in a while, like Robot 2.0. Q. After TEPK is Akshay ahead of SRK now? A. It’s too early to talk about Toilet Ek Prem Katha, post-Sunday collections has become crucial now. Weekend trend can be quite deceptive, like we’ve seen with films like ‘Jagga Jasoos’. But having said that, in terms of current standing, definitely Akshay Kumar is ahead after the failure of JHMS. Current standing is different from ‘stardom’. Only the opening day is not important – making sure the film is profitable for all is most important and entertaining your audience / fans is also equally important – because if you constantly disappoint them, the number of audience for your future films might gradually decrease. It’s happened for Akshay before, but credit to him for realising it quickly and coming up with the kind of films that he has in the last 2 odd years. Q. After a super successful 2017, where do u see Akshay in 2018? All his movies look different and interesting. A. There’s great excitement amongst the multiplex audience for Akshay Kumar films now. Toilet Ek Prem Katha, even though it did not look exciting or commercial, the audience – atleast in cities – were keenly waiting for the film. This has reflected in the Saturday and Sunday (again big growth) collections. After Toilet, he has Robot 2.0 and Padman. Again, very different films and great variety.  Even though it’s difficult to predict how films will shape up, we think he’ll continue his strong run in 2018. Q. Gangs of Wasseypur 1 and 2 are considered as modern classic then why Gangs of Wasseypur 3 got shelved? A. India is vast country. A small bunch of people liking a film (which includes critics), does not make a film a ‘modern classic’. Dangal can be called a modern day classic. The first Gangs Of Wasseypur film failed commercially, the second was a bigger failure. Filmmaking is a business, money is invested to make profits. When that’s not happening, there won’t be investors and when there are no investors, films will get shelved. Q. Given the kind of trend Toilet is showing, is it possible to reach 160 crore mark in lifetime? A. It’s a very difficult prediction to make because of holidays. The word-of-mouth isn’t extraordinary either, infact it’s quite mixed. The second half seems to be the problem. Our IndicineLBO prediction is ready, but we are waiting for some sort of confirmation on tax exemption. Some people internally are saying it could get tax exemption in many more states after Independence Day. That could make a significant difference. 160 crore looks highly unlikely even with tax benefits, but do wait for our prediction article later today. Q. Is content overtaking stardom nowadays? A. Content is important, but so are stars. Only stars can take films like Dangal or Bajrangi Bhaijaan to those levels of business. Most look for reasons to watch a film. As soon as you have Aamir Khan, the business potential explodes. With all due respect, if a Dangal had Irrfan Khan in the lead, it would probably max out at 60-70 crore (best case). Aamir took it to 2000 crore gross worldwide. That’s the value that major stars who are recognised and loved, can add to a film. But with ticket prices so high, if a star begins to think he’s bigger than the film itself and starts to take his fans or audience for granted, he’ll be booted out. Irrespective of how big he is. That’s the audience of today, especially in major cities. Q. What does mean tax free in case of a movie ? If a movie is declared tax free, then who will get the benefit ? A. GST or Entertainment tax is exempted (not applied). That means, the entire ticket amount will get shared between exhibitors (theatre owners) and distributors / producers of the film. It also helps reduce ticket prices, hence making films more affordable and increasing the footfalls (i.e number of audience that watch a film). Q. Why hasn’t Bollywood made an intelligent movie like ‘Interstellar’ or ‘Inception’ till date? A. We also need audience to watch those intelligent films. The audience for intelligent or films that get a little puzzling, is very limited. Also, how many directors do we have of the calibre of Christopher Nolan in our industry? Some of our most intelligent directors and actors make the most stupidest of films. Q. What is the genre of SRK’s dwarf film ? If it is a proper love story don’t you think it should be shelved after seeing disastrous performance of JHMS ? A. It can’t be shelved now. Aanand L Rai is a good director and as long as he does the movie the way ‘he’ wants it to, it should be a good film. But if there’s influence somewhere or changes in the script to match SRK’s image / persona.. that’s when the film begins to get into trouble. From what we know, the script of Dilwale was actually much better than what it eventually turned out to be. The script was changed to extend the love angle between SRK – Kajol, a few other changes were also made. Q. You have predicted 25 crore for TEPK when trailer released but now before one day of release you predict 13-14Cr!! Now can you please predict total box office collection of TEPK? A. Where do you get these numbers from? We never took Toilet Ek Prem Katha above 16-17 crore. We’ve never predicted 20 crore or above or any Akshay Kumar film. Q. Indicine I’m huge fan of your site and always visit but you never answer my question, please tell me who is the biggest superstar of current Decade and can he remain biggest till 2020 please answer me please. A. It’s Salman Khan and that’s unlikely to change unless Aamir Khan does 1-2 movies every year for the next 3 years and Salman suddenly drops off and delivers 4 back to back box office failures. Even then his record this decade is beyond phenomenal. Q. Buzz is SRK is working with Aditya Chopra on a period drama film .shooting will start in end of 2017. Is it true? A. We’ve heard 3 rumours of SRK’s upcoming unannounced films and all three sound very interesting. But how can we talk about it before it’s official? Let there be an announcement first, after that we can discuss its potential and how it could shape his next 2-3 years. Q. We keep saying India still depends on star power to deliver the big hits (with the exception of Baahubali) but stories of the movies are becoming really important in recent times, then If say SRK had done Hindi Medium, would that movie have grossed 200 crores? A. SRK doing a film like Hindi Medium may not really work. It doesn’t sound convincing.  We’ve got to remember that even Hindi Medium worked only in a few cities. SRK’s audience is too big for him and the appeal of films like Hindi Medium is limited. Q. After JHMS tanked at the box office don’t you think SRK should move away from romance and try different scripts like Aamir? Also do u guys think that masala movies will work nowadays with a good storyline? A. It’s now or never for SRK. With age no longer on his side, his choice of films has to change immediately. Next 2-3 films will be very important. His core audience base is still families, who haven’t been coming to theatres to watch his films. To answer your second questions – Almost all universally successful Indian films are masala, which means a bit of every genre. A film like ‘Main Hoon Na’ today, genuine clean family entertainment, would still be a blockbuster. Chak De India has potential to be as huge as Dangal. But who exactly are you making films like Jab Harry Met Sejal for? The promos of the film itself sealed its box office fate. But even then we did not expect 60 crore lifetime, this sort of number for such a big film means outright rejection from every section of the audience. Q. Don’t you think Rajkumar Hirani has become repetitive with his films? And does Dutt really have potential to do very well? And can you state the net worth of Rajkumar Hirani if you know? I read it is 172 million $ but how he has just made 4 films. A. The lead characters of Raju Hirani films have similarities, the concept of his films have been different though. As long as it works as well as his first four films have – there may not be any reason to make drastic changes. The real-life persona of Sanjay Dutt is also very similar to the lead characters of Hirani films i.e misunderstood man with a heart of gold. The story of the film and its treatment is a top secret. And that’s how it should be too. About his net worth, please avoid asking such questions, we do not know his personal net worth. He also directs advertisement films etc. So a film director can do a lot work and earn a lot of money outside Hindi films too. Q. I dont have any question. Just wanted to wish you Happy birthday !! (11 years of indicine) A. We are happy to know that people remember the date we started the site too. It’s on 20 August 2006 that we registered the website. And yes it’s 11 years. We think we have retained a lot of readers from the olden days. Thanks again. Q. Why are you expecting such low opening for A Gentleman and Baadshao? There holidays for Ganesh Chaturthi and Bakrid on Day 1 respectively. Can’t Gentleman open at 10 crore and Baadshao at 15 crore? A. A Gentleman had a good trailer, but the song promos that have released after that – which also gets played repeatedly on television – give it a typical rom-com look and feel. It’s also looking western. They haven’t released action promos either. We have informed them about this. They have planned to push their campaign after Toilet.EPK i.e tomorrow onwards. The advantage of Ganesh Chaturthi is there, but we have seen in the last few years that business can get affected where it’s a major festival. We’ll have to wait and see how Baadshaho progresses, it’s currently not that hot to get a 15 crore plus start even on Bakrid. Q. Don’t you it is time we should write off Shahrukh khan? 1-2 flops are fine but 4 consecutive under preformers that too one lower than the other is not acceptable. Dilwale came as a shocker when it lost the clash against a relatively smaller film, Fan also shocked when it couldn’t even reach 100 crore when his contemporaries are hitting the century within three days, The only thing remaining was a disaster and Jab Harry met Sejal did the honours. So shall we write off Shahrukh khan or do we still need to wait for his movie with Anand L Rao to become another flop? A. Not at all, even though the wait for that one great film has been way too long now. He still has the potential to be one of the biggest, if not ‘the’ biggest. With the kind of films he’s doing, most actors would’ve folded up by now. But he’s still getting those weekend totals. 15 crore opening is still a big ask for all barring 2 or maybe 3 actors in the industry. If he doesn’t get atleast one of his next two films right, it’ll be a waste of all the talent that he has. Q. Do you think Judwaa 2 has the potential to cross 100 crore in its first week considering it has a big four day weekend? Will it release on 3500 screens? Any internal reports about how the movie has shaped and when will the trailer be out? A. 100 crore in the first week is difficult. It has holidays, but for a Varun Dhawan film to average above 14 crore over a 7 day period is still a big ask. The release will be wide, we can’t talk about the number at this time. The trailer was supposed to come out with Toilet, but they’ve decided to keep the marketing campaign shorter and they’ll be trying a few different things too – as the set marketing campaigns of today seem to be backfiring and reducing ticket sales in theatres. Q. Why do you always under-estimate Ajay Devgn? Isn’t he a major crowd puller among the masses (considering the fact that Shivaay did 100 cr bussiness only from single screens, he’s the only to achieve this feat apart from Salman Khan). A. Where do you get these numbers from? Even the India net + overseas gross of Shivaay is not 100 crore, please ask the distributors of the film. More than 80-85% of business of all Hindi films is from multiplexes. So unless multiplexes support, films won’t get those big numbers. How are we underestimating Ajay Devgn? On our FBO page, Baadshaho is currently at 11.5 crore. Shivaay opened 10 cr /less than 10 cr. Drishyam opened at 6 crore in India. Action Jackson was 11. Satyagraha was 10. Himmatwala was 10. And Baadshaho does not belong to the Singham or Golmaal franchise. Hence the prediction, which is more than the average of his last few films. It’s our estimate / expectation, we could be wrong. Q. I’m a huge fan of your Indicine & visit many times in a day you guys are doing a good job. What you think about collection of Toilet :Ek prem Katha & your prediction? Will it be another consecutive 100 cr for Akshay? And what will be impact of it’s collection on Top actors ranking? A. Thank you for visiting. Yes, it should cross the 100 crore mark. We promise to put out the Top actors ranking as soon as we get an accurate idea about which range Toilet:EPK will finish its lifetime business. Q. What is your stand on the importance of songs in films nowadays. I think they are fast becoming useless, when was the last time a film did well because of the songs, I can’t seem to remember, even the films which had chartbusters like Befikre, Baar Baar Dekho failed inspire of the popularity of the songs, there was a time around 10 years ago when music was Paramount to the success of a film but I think the Audiences have evolved from that. I also Think that the filmmakers should refrain from songs unless music is an integral part of the story like Aashiqui, Rockstar because it makes sense to have songs in those kind of films. Songs just add to the budget and length of the film nowadays without adding anything to the quality. A. Songs are adding little or no value. Almost the entire song promo is out on the internet which can be watched multiple times. Watching the same song again in theatre is actually turning out to be boring. In olden days, the audience used to be curious about knowing how a song they like has been picturised on the actors. Now even that suspense and curiosity is missing. For example, in Judwaa 2, Varun will be recreating some songs from the old Salman film. From an audience point of view, if the promos are not released, they be curious about how Varun would perform on a Salman song and this would make them queue up at theatres. But when they put the full song out, it’s one reason less to watch the film. Films these days are giving very little value, but the ticket prices are increasing. You get to see actors on TV for almost an entire month entertaining on various television shows, they post pictures and interact with fans almost everyday on Instagram / Twitter / Facebook. They are easily accessible and this has reduced the aura around actors. They are not larger than life now, they are not unreachable now.. over promotion of films, over exposure of stars, full song promos and increase in ticket prices are all adding to the gradual downfall of the industry. Q. Will SRK’s dwarf film be in trouble because of JHMS failure at the box office? A. He could have a film before the dwarf film and it should be very interesting if it happens. Let’s wait to see how it goes. Long time between now and the release of the dwarf film. Q. Indicine Is Namesty Canada is confirmed With Arjun kapoor and Parineeti chopra playing leads If Arjun and Parineeti Are coming for this film then what about Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar. A. Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar is Arjun’s next film. There’s time for the other film and there could be another film in between i.e before Namaste Canada and after Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar. Q. If Aamir is Sachin, then Akshay is Dravid of Bollywood. He might not have that big 300 crores, but he always delivers and that too not once but 5 times in 18 months. Many exhibitors would shut their shops if not for Akshay. It is he who keeps the clock ticking even in dull periods- Pvr, Inox etc. are business houses and they know how important Akshay is for them. If not for him, they will just be doing business once or twice every year. Akki keeps the scoreboard ticking and when we witnessed Salman, Srk and Ranbir failing, Akki once again came to rescue. Last year as well, we had a mammoth in Dangal but then Akshay gave not one but 3 100 crores – Srk had no release. One needs to understand the lane in which Akki is running. He has his movies release every 3-4 months, does not take breaks ! What happened when Srk tried 2 doing 2 movies in 1 year – Audience was easily bored and did not even turn up for JHMS. Even Raees did okay business and it was supposed to be mass movie. On the other hand, Akshay has not stopped at all – his only underperformer in last 3-4 years has been Brothers and that too was not outright rejection like JHMS and did 80+ crores. No point in bringing up his failures many years back – Srk might have been ahead then but we are talking about current standing. If Akshay is not in top 3, then it is really unfair and we do understand the biased nature of Bollywood. A. Your point is worth putting across to all our readers. Nothing to add. Q. Is it the end of road for Ajay Devgn & Shahrukh Khan, as Aamir Salman Akshay are consistent enough ? A. How does the success or failure of one actor affect the other? There is space for all those actors and many more in this industry. We actually need more stars. The industry still hasn’t produced the next generation to replace the Khans or Akshay. Even a star of Hrithik’s calibre hasn’t been seen. Ranbir comes the closest, but he lacks mass appeal. Q. Do you think Akshay Kumar will now start getting those bumper openings that he used to get back in 2007-08? A. We thought he would after Rustom, but that hasn’t happened with both Jolly LLB 2 and Toilet:EPK. It could just be because the subject or scale does not make it a big initial film. In terms of opening, he was at a different level in mid 2000s. Even his audience overseas was much bigger. Q. Can TEPK do a double digit on Monday and above 15 crores on Tuesday ? That would take the 5 day weekend above 70 and we can look at a 80 crore first week A. Possible. Monday is partial holiday for Janmastami. Q. Now what should SRK do to be back on track after not delivering any clean hit for 2 years? A. He’s too big an achiever for us to advice, but from an industry’s point of view, because we still need him to be at his peak – we think he should get back to selecting good scripts and not just sign films because of the past achievements or films of the director. More heartland films, that are shot in India and have desi feel to it. Films that absolutely does not have romance as the main angle. Less pre-release hype – carpet bombing marketing strategies don’t work anymore. Finally, if SRK does good films and succeeds, somewhere it would make a lot of people happy. Fans, industry and trade included. Q. Can Ranveer become top actor of this generation after the humongous Padmavati, multiplex centered and content oriented Gully Boy with a fresh pairing of Alia, Rohit Shetty’s next out and out action movie and Kabir Khan’z 1983 World Cup Movie where he plays Kapil Dev? rK A. Ranveer has a lot of potential. He is raw talent and has the potential to become a favourite of the masses as well. He’s good at action too. So as long as the does the right films, he’ll be there a few years from now. About talk of topping the industry, it’s as silly as calling Padmavati ‘humongous’ a few months before its release. Q. I am tired of asking question and not getting answer. It’s been a strange two weeks. SRK falls and rise of Akshay. Is it confirmed now that Akshay is the bigger star in domestic? A. Yes. Akshay is at the second best phase of his career after mid-2000s. With the right balance of the kind of films he does, we think he’ll be consistent for a longer period of time now. Q. What is your opinion on the appointment of new CBFC chief and members? Is Vidya Balan competent to be a board member? A. It isn’t the easiest of jobs. India is such a vast and varied country that something in some film could end up hurting some section of the audience. It could even lead to a law and order problem. So just because Prasoon Joshi has been appointed as the head and everyone is hailing the decision, it doesn’t mean we’ll suddenly have an overly liberal Censor Board chief. We can only comment after 6 months of his term as CBFC chief. For now, it looks like a good decision by the government and Smriti Irani’s appointment as I&B minster has definitely helped in changing things around. She’s close to Ekta Kapoor and a lot of people within the industry. It would be easier for them to get issues sorted out, if there is one. Also, she knows how the industry functions and its issues too. That ends AskIndicine for today, it’s been more than 4 hours since we started and we’ve answered more than 40 questions today. Thank you for joining us.

We apologise for the delay. AskIndicine was supposed to begin at 6PM IST, but like every other Shah Rukh / Salman release, we are experiencing peak traffic on the website and we couldn’t login to our own system at 6PM. Let’s begin the QnA. Q. Recently in an interview Akshay Kumar has said that the budget of Toilet-Ek Prem Katha is 18 cr. So how can it needs 145 cr to recover cost? A. The figure that Akshay Kumar quoted was the cost of production. What matters is the price that the film has been sold for. Q. Our Superstars This year failed us in 2 movies Tubelight and JHMS. The other Superstar Hrithik Kaabil was average ,Aamir has an extended cameo in Secret Superstar do you think its time now the remaining two Non Khan Superstars can compensate the audiences with their upcoming movies next week ,Sept 1st and Diwali? Your thoughts and what have you learnt from the poor results of recent biggies? A. It’s all about the film now. The value of a superstar is diminishing in a bad film. A star is only adding value to good films. Baadshaho is not creating enough buzz. With Golmaal, the film itself is going to be the biggest brand. Aamir will add value to Secret Superstar, but the audience is smart enough to know it’s not his film (i.e Aamir as main lead). So even though it might open bigger than other similar films, it’ll still be a word-of-mouth film. Q. SRK’s next is again a love story and it seems love stories never really hold the appeal to cross 200cr in india doesn’t matter who stars in it. So, is the fate sealed again? A. His next film is on shaky grounds now. For several reasons. One, SRK may not be able to hold on to the Christmas weekend now. When he averted the ‘JHMS’ clash with ‘Toilet:EPK’, the wrong signal went out that unlike the Shah Rukh of before, he is willing to let someone else take the bigger weekend. Now, with ‘JHMS’ likely to fall well short of the 100 crore mark, it’s almost certain that many would’ve already started eyeing the Christmas 2018 weekend. That’s how its always been in the industry, every producer would want the best weekend for his films. Two, there’s going to be tremendous negativity around the SRK-Anushka jodi now. There’s anger amongst the audience against ‘JHMS’ and the same on-screen couple is repeating in the very next film – which also happens to be about romance. And three, the budget is very high. All these factors combined will make the Dwarf film the riskiest of 2018. Aanand L Rai will have to deliver a classic, anything less and the movie will be in big trouble. The only other positive is, there’s a good gap after ‘JHMS’. So the anticipation to watch Shah Rukh on the big screen could increase by fall of 2018. Q. Who according to you is the most important after the Director in the making part of the film? Apart from the lead pair. I now everybody should be given equal importance but still according to you who is the most after the Director and why? Is it the Editor? A. Filmmaking is a team work. A good script and director are most very important, but a bad actor can end up ruining even a well-directed film with a good story to tell. Editing is important too. In short, a classic or a much-loved film is about all aspects of filmmaking falling in place. If one slips, it’ll end up impacting the other. Even a Rajnikanth can fail in the south when the film is bad. Q. Why is your buzz for Baadshaho so low? Its been trending heavy on Twitter and other socio medias also. Is Toilet Ek Prem Katha and Golmaal 4 going to really reach the figures you are predicting? Any reason for predicting TEPK, G4 too high? A. If Twitter trends were the benchmarks for ‘buzz’ of films, Jab Harry Met Sejal would’ve been a blockbuster. It doesn’t work that way. The reality on the ground i.e with the paying public is different. We did a theatre-research this weekend. Baadshaho is carrying absolutely no buzz at multiplexes. The audience isn’t interested in watching the film, although it might open well at smaller centres due to the star cast. We’ll have to wait and see if that changes in the next 3 weeks. Do note, that we do not have anything against any film or actor. We were criticised for saying there wasn’t any interest for Tubelight and JHMS. We didn’t say the same for Sultan or Raees. And the same for Golmaal 4. It’ll be shocking if the film takes anything less than an excellent opening, the series is loved by the family audience and Diwali is the perfect time to release it. The buzz around Toilet Ek Prem Katha has decreased in the last few weeks, but the reason for predicting high currently is because the film is likely to get tax exemption in several states and secondly we expect the film to be good. The prediction number will change after release, depending on the response. Q. Can you please explain us if ‘Toilet Ek Prem Katha’ earn Tax-Free Status… then how much can it boost collections? A. It depends on how many states the film will get tax exemption. If it gets exemption across all BJP ruled states – which is 18 states and nearly 70% of the population – then the advantage will be huge. It could significantly increase the footfalls too as tickets will be priced lower. It’s difficult to put a number, but the benefit could be more than 25% on an all-India level. Q. What is the total landing cost of Jab Harry Met Sejal? A. The film has to recover 118 crore share from Worldwide business. So even if we assume it does 40 crore share from overseas, it has to collect upwards of 150 crore net in India to break-even. It won’t even collect half of that. Q. Shah Rukh Khan is having a bad phase, do you see him losing his current position to Akshay and Ajay with 2.0, Golmaal Again, Toilet Ek Prem Katha. A. In terms of star power, Shah Rukh Khan remains bigger in the near future. With all due respect, it would be very unfair to compare him with Ajay Devgn now or ever, because Shah Rukh still extremely consistent when it comes to opening. Different league altogether. A Golmaal with Ajay will be several times bigger than a Baadshaho or Shivaay with Ajay. Shah Rukh’s film will still open at a certain level and if the brand or film supports, then he can get to 35 and 40 crore opening. When it comes to current standing, Akshay has a real chance of surpassing Shah Rukh because the perception around Akshay has changed in recent times. There is a belief amongst the audience that his films are good, which wasn’t the case few years ago. He was quick to realise this and has consciously worked at changing his image and doing script-driven films. On the other hand, Shah Rukh’s case is opposite to Akshay and he seems to be stuck in the image that he created in the past. There were signs that his romantic films weren’t exciting the audience when ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’ released. When a 25-30-35 or even 40 year old actor romances a girl on-screen, the audience want him to win over her. But that isn’t the case when the actor is 50 years or older. The hype around raising arms and ‘King of Romance’ is PR-driven and fan-loved. But the majority of audience are normal i.e those seeking good and different cinematic experiences. For an actor who has achieved it all, films are ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ are a waste of precious time, when his acting talent and clout in the industry can actually see him doing scripts like Chak De India, Dangal etc. He’s romanced, he’s won over many girls.. time to do something different and special which both the fans and normal audience will enjoy for years to come. Q. As we know more than the half of the year is done and we have seen only few movies living to the expectations of fans and trade. Now only less than 5 months remaining this year and fewer major releases are there like Padmavati n Tiger Zinda Hai. My question is if TZH too didn’t perform well, would this year be considered as one of the dullest year for Bollywood and what would b the impact of this on Bollywood in general in future and on superstars Salman n Shahrukh in particular? A. It’s been a poor year so far, but the post ‘Bahubali 2’ phase has been dismal. Films aren’t even opening. The big remaining films are Toilet, Badshaho, Judwaa, Golmaal, Padmavati and Tiger Zinda Hai. It’s very important for the industry that atleast 4 of these 6 films films, all of them doing well would obviously mean a strong 2nd half. Q. Why are people so happy to see Srk movie flop? Ashamed to hear that here in Coventry England my buddies who are English are telling me that my country is happy that their idol movies is failing. He said he heard it from his Mother knowing his Indian friend is me. So much hatred? A. There’s no hatred against SRK. But there is certainly a sense of disappointment over the films that he’s been doing and wasting both his fan-following as well as talent. It’s not about one film here. It’s been a long series of films and his choices aren’t changing. Those who have grown up watching his films, have the right to complain on the kind of films that he’s been doing this decade. From a trade point of view, the industry needs stars like him to do well. When a star like him is doing films like ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal, which alienates a huge section of his fanbase, it’s a big reason for worry. His prime responsibility is to entertain his fans and audience back here in India. Do films that they like. Your English buddies come much later. Q. As JHMS has tanked at box office, don’t u think someone else should announce their movie for Christmas 2018 as the date may go waste seeing current state of SRK. What about Akshay releasing Mogul on Christmas? A. It will happen, just a matter of time. Not too sure about Mogul. It has to be a big-budget commercial film. Q. Don’t you think there is a huge disconnect between the audiences and the makers. Its time to give writers their due, bring in fresh ideas and scripts, the audience has access to Hollywood films and great content from the west, there is no place to hide, honestly it’s embarrassing to see how the industry treats it’s audience, given they dole out stupidity in the name of entertainment. The last two blockbusters Bahubali and Dangal brought something new to the table in terms of visuals and authenticity, we need to fo that more often otherwise the industry will be eaten by other options, it’s already happening. The days are gone when one item number would bring people into theatres, the audience have matured and the makers don’t realise that, it’s disappointing. A. Massive disconnect between filmmakers sitting in Juhu / Bandra and the all-India paying public. Think of it. The big directors have failed with their last films. Aditya Chopra, Kabir Khan, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Anurag Basu and now Imtiaz Ali. Aditya Chopra is the director who made family films like DDLJ, Mohabbatein, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, but alienated 99% of the population with Befikre. Kabir Khan has failed with Tubelight. Ashutosh Gowarikar failed to give scale to a big budget films, when films with 1/4th the cost can be made to look bigger. Wholesome entertainment is lacking in films. In the 90s and 2000s, even the worst of films were fairly entertaining and had good music. Ticket prices were much cheaper so the audience did not feel cheated. For its survival, the industry needs to figure out what the audience want and start making those films. Q. Varun is more bankable than Shah Rukh khan now. Is it time to remove Superstar tags from Shah Rukh Ajay and Hrithik and put Varun ,Ranbir and Ranveer now. Your thoughts please. A. Varun Dhawan needs 20 more successes like Badrinath Ki Dulhania to get anywhere close to SRK and even then he might find himself too far. Shah Rukh Khan is a once in a lifetime superstar. Even if all his films fail from here, that won’t change. Let’s end the silly comparison there. Q. What is your expectations from SRK – Anand film ? A. Not much for now. Let’s wait and see how it shapes up. Q. Hi Indicine a big fan of website from Dublin. Thanks a lot for your great work. What are the chances of JHMS becoming a hit from here onwards since the WOM is not that good. Apart from that what does SRK need to do to get back in the box office game as since Chennai Express he hasn’t delivered a clean hit. A. Thanks for visiting. Unfortunately, there’s no chance of JHMS becoming a box office ‘hit’ from here. To answer the second part of your question, he needs to do good entertaining films and not forget that section of audience that made a household name – family audience. Q. Was SRK aware about the propsects of JHMS that he purposely averted the clash with TEPK so that it get at least solo week to earn maximum? A. Probably. The stars usually know. The bigger question is, how did SRK approve the script when he has a responsibility towards his fans and audience. Q. Toilet Ek Prem Katha will be hugely benefitted from failure of JHMS or it will just have a little impact on TEPK box office? A. Definitely a big advantage. If JHMS was a good film, it would’ve affected the business of Toilet Ek Prem Katha, which would’ve been allotted lesser shows in its opening week. Now, JHMS will be out of most theatres or running on very few shows by the end of this week. Toilet:EPK will get more shows. A huge section of audience hasn’t watched a film for while now, they might come if Toilet:EPK is good. It’s that audience that SRK would’ve taken away if JHMS was good. So it’s all set up perfectly well for Toilet:EPK, now all depends on the content. Q. Does Salman Khan uses Body Double for action scenes? Is He one of the few superstars that does not use body double? A. No, he does use. Every actor uses body double. Not for every scene though, only when there’s a genuine requirement or scenes where the actor doesn’t have the agility or is too risky. Q. Now please rank top 5 actors in order of star pull in a right films and right circumstances please. A. After Toilet Ek Prem Katha. Q. If Anand L Rai film also doesn’t click right cords with audience. Then can we declare that SRK’s stardom is over? A. Stardom will never be over, he’s earned enough die-hard fans. But we think his fanbase is gradually decreasing. To give you an example of what we heard from an exhibitor; there was a middle-aged female fan of Shah Rukh who always used to watch his films first-day-first-show from the 90s and did so this time around too. But with JHMS she didn’t like the film and she walked out when the kissing scene happened. It’s probably one fan lost and one fan who may not come first day first show? This is India, at smaller centres the audience is still conservative. It’s not about right or wrong, but they do not like watching sex or kissing scenes, especially when it comes to actors of the stature of Shah Rukh Khan, who have not done it for the first 20 years of his career (not including Maya Memsaab which noone watched). It’s for the actor himself to realise this, we think, even if the script demands it.. because the fan-base of a Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan extends to every nook and corner of the country. Some of these people who are fans of SRK/Salman do not even know the younger generation of actors. Q. With the industry going through rough phase.. dint you think Dutt biopic is also in risk? A. Rajkumar Hirani films have had a dream run at the box office. Is he due a failure? Probably. But he’s too good a director to deliver anything less than a good film. But like we’ve already mentioned in another question today, almost every big director has failed in recent times. We hope Hirani doesn’t join the list. Q. If there is any Akshay Kumar movie left to be release this year? A. Toilet Ek Prem Katha. Nothing after that this year. We are experiencing too much traffic at the moment. We’ll have to stop the QnA at this time. Do join us at mid-night (12AM), we’ll answer a few more. Thank you. We are back again. We wonder how many people would be joining us at midnight. Q. I see everybody complaining why SRK did a film like JHMS. Fair enough its a poor film. Everyone’s complaining why cant he pick good scripts. One must remember that with FAN and RAEES , SRK did try his hand outside romantic genre and was not successful. These are testing times for SRK, he is beginning to lose his super stardom. He will be the first Khan to move to character roles I feel . Of course see a bright future for Red Chillies, it will be come a big production house producing 2-3 films every year I feel. A. This isn’t a question, but a comment by one of our readers (Lisa). We have a point to make here. The last Shah Rukh Khan film to find acceptance amongst the audience was Chennai Express in 2013 and that film went on to become an All Time Blockbuster. Before Chennai Express, he had 3-4 films that did not trend well in India. So what that means is, when he gives a good film the audience come in very big numbers. But even with almost every director in the industry wanting to work with him, the biggest of budgets and immense star power that he adds to a film – he hasn’t been able to get the content of his films right and some of them only because of wrong choices or wanting to continue cash-in on his romantic image. He has let go of films like 3 Idiots and Robot. 3 Idiots would’ve probably lead to him also working in PK. These are big films, which he let go to do films like Ra One under a director (Anubhav Sinha) who has never directed a good film. It’s not time for him to do character roles, he still has it in him to have a good 5-6 years as a lead hero. More importantly, the industry needs him because none of the young actors have reached anywhere close to the following of the three Khans. Not yet atleast. We have around 924 people joining us on this page at this time. Not bad at all. Hope you all like the QnA. We’ll answer a few questions. Q. What are your opening day expectations from TEPK looking at the current scenario of box office? A. It should open somewhere in the Jolly LLB 2 range of 12-13 crore, with tax exemption adding to collections. There’s no clarity on how many states will exempt the film. We’ll have to wait and see. Q. What is the exact reason for films putting up such poor shows? A. There is no one reason. Today’s audience is ruthless and disinterested. Imagine spending 1500 rupees for two people for a movie outing and watching a bad film. The audience will feel the pinch when ticket prices are so high and snacks cost so much. A glass of Pepsi is priced at 200 bucks and 200-250 more for popcorn at a metro city multiplex. Tickets cost 300/400/500 in the weekend. Add to it car parking fees and travelling time and expense. The total would be 750 per person, 1500 per couple or 3000 for a family of four. And all of it to watch a bad / average film. It’s not worth it. About 15-20 years ago, even though we couldn’t book tickets conveniently online – the excitement of queueing up outside the theatres to watch a Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham or Main Hoon Na or Koi Mil Gaya was immense. And all for around 250-300 rupees for a family of four, 150 for a couple. Add inflation to it and it still wouldn’t come to 1500 that multiplexes charge for a couple today. That too without the excitement of those old films. The good days of cinema are over, unfortunately. Bahubali 2 is the only film that came close to generating that kind of hype in recent times and the results are in front of us. Q. I have a question.. Aamir led a movie like Dangal to about 30 crores on first day.. Without much of word of mouth coming into play.. Still he is not considered as big of a star as other Khans.. Why? A. Dangal getting to 30 crore on Day 1 and 380 crore lifetime is nothing short of a miracle and Aamir deserves entire credit for it. Dangal was less commercial, didn’t have a female star, no romance angle which can prove to be disastrous at smaller centres. But the film worked big time and got an initial too. When people say Aamir is not a big superstar, what they usually mean is, he doesn’t have the crazy fan base. When ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ released, the morning show audience was filled with SRK fans. Anticipation just to watch him. Whistles when he came on screen. In short, Hero worship. Ditto for Salman at any single screen when his films release. This is the traditional understanding of star power and craze with examples like Rajesh Khanna, Rajnikant, Amitabh Bachchan. Aamir Khan is entirely different and someone as uniquely brilliant as him, the industry has not seen before. Whether it’s his script sense, marketing brain or effort that goes into his films – it’s unparalleled. Superstar is not a term that defines his genius. Aamir is an institution, there’s a lot that everyone can learn from him. Q. There’re reports that Remo’s movie with Salman is not happening. But Salman is always with Remo’s dancers, taking dance lessons from them and they’re even in Adu Dhabi with him right now. Do you know anything about this rumours? A. There’s nothing official about this. But if they were serious about doing this film, they would’ve announced it and taken the Eid weekend by now. If he isn’t doing it, it’s a good decision. Remo is a bad director. Salman has probably realised after Tubelight debacle that even during Eid he needs good films and if they audience doesn’t get it, they wont come even for his films. So better to plan and make a good movie, instead of working against time to get your film ready for Eid. Q. After the cold response to Jagga Jasoos will it be easy for Ranbir to gain trust of audience ? Will he be able to find those opening numbers for his upcoming movies ? A. Ranbir is lucky to have a film like Dutt biopic under Rajkumar Hirani. Unless Hirani some how experiments too much and messes it up, it should do well. He’s a fantastic director and even better writer. And after Dutt, he has a film with another successful director, Ayan Mukherji. So if the film is good, Ranbir has both the charm and following to bring people in big numbers to theatres – especially multiplexes. He shouldn’t be experimenting with films like Bombay Velvet or something that’s too off-beat or niche. Q. Keeping in mind all the factors like music, trailer, star cast, release date (opening day only) etc, whose opening was better JHMS or Tubelight? A. Most certainly Tubelight. It was Pre-Eid, which significantly affects business in muslim dominated areas. So the real value of Tubelight on Day 1 was probably around 24 crore. Plus, that film was more niche and less commercial as compared to Jab Harry Met Sejal.  It’s being called a niche film by some trade websites, when it isn’t. It’s a full blown commercial film with a big budget, exotic locations, top superstar and top heroine. It even had Punjabi songs etc. The film failed to get an initial because the audience simply did not like those mini trails. Out of Khan films, Dangal was the least commercial, followed by Tubelight and JHMS. Raees was probably the most commercial with the best trailer and mass appeal. Thank you for joining us. We’ll try to answer more questions tomorrow.

Q. Will Raees remain highest grosser of the year till Tiger Zinda Hai (excluding Baahubali) ? A. Golmaal Again should easily beat Raees to become the highest grosser of the year. It’s a film that the family audience would want to watch and as long as its not a bad film, it should top the year in October. Before that we have films like Jab Harry Met Sejal, Toilet Ek Prem Katha and Judwaa 2 – with good content these films could beat Raees. After Golmaal Again, the big films are Padmavati and Tiger Zinda Hai. Q. How much film makers spend on marketing? A. It varies from film to film. The average marketing spend on medium to big budget film is 10-15 crore. Much lesser for smaller films. Q. Any pre release reports of Jab Harry Met Sejal? Can it go beyond 175 Cr, if it’s WOM is positive? A. If the film is exceptional, then anything is possible. But a lot would depend on the start it gets. Very few films these days are even doubling their weekend total, so to get to 175 crore – Jab Harry Met Sejal has to open above the 20 crore mark, grow over the weekend to get to a 65-70 crore weekend and then trend very well over the weekdays. Even after that – since it only has one open week – the kind of response that Toilet Ek Prem Katha gets will have a direct impact on the lifetime business of Jab Harry Met Sejal. We are currently looking at 170 crore range with exceptional word-of-mouth, 140 crore with good word-of-mouth, 100 crore with average word-of-mouth and 80 crore range if the response is poor. All of these numbers are only expectations,  the opening day number will be crucial. The film will be in trouble if it falls below 17 crore on Day 1. Q. How much does cooperate booking affect the first day business? A. A fixed number cannot be put for corporate booking, it varies from film to film. Usually block corporate bookings are made for the weekend (Saturday and Sunday). Q. Will Golmaal 4 have a clash with Robot 2 or not? A. No. Robot 2.0 has been pushed to early 2018. Q. At worst case what will be minimum collection of ‘Golmal Again’? I didn’t liked much ‘Golmaal Returns and Golmaal 3’ A. Individual opinion of liking or not liking a film does not make any difference at the box office. As long as majority of the paying public like a film, it’ll do well. Golmaal Again has competition from Secret Superstar during Diwali, but it should be the first choice for the family audience.We wouldn’t be surprised if it does 30 crore plus on the Diwali holiday. It should easily get to 100 crore plus maybe 200-250 crore if it turns out to be entertaining or the best Golmaal film. Q. Is Hrithik going through a bad phase again? Considering his last few films have disappointed, and he takes a long time to sign films A. The post Bang Bang phase hasn’t been good. His films haven’t been opening, but the promos of both his releases have been extremely poor too. We’ve seen how even a Salman Khan during Eid can deliver an ‘average’ box office opening when the trailer isn’t liked or when it doesn’t cater to the all-India audience / fan base. As for not signing enough films, it’s his personal choice. He isn’t very competitive and we don’t think he has the desire to be one amongst the top actors in the industry. The number game or sustaining his level in the industry probably isn’t important for him, as it is for some of the other stars in the industry. Q. Which movie will be the biggest hit of the year 2017…? A. Our pick in order of preference – Tiger Zinda Hai, Golmaal Again, Padmavati. Q. What is lifetime box office prediction of Mubarakan? A. Our final prediction for the film is 45 crore. Monday will decide the fate of the film. Anything below 4 crore will be end of the story. It needs Friday level collections on Monday to ensure that it gets fair amount of shows at multiplexes in the second weekend when Jab Harry Met Sejal releases. The overall response is better than Munna Michael, but due to the extremely poor start, it has a lot left to do over the weekdays and after the release of the SRK film. Q. @indicine I’m visiting your site since 2012 and i have read almost all of your articles q/a session etc… i know team indicine is very hard working and you never post fake news till now, and thats why i’m your biggest fan.. please answer me this time.. do you think pakistani movies can release in india in the near future because indian people appreciate pakistani movies.. do you think any pakistani hit movie can survive like bollywood movie in india.. Big Thank you..!! A. Thanks for visiting. As compared to the popularity of Hindi films and its stars in Pakistan, there’s very little awareness about Pakistani films in India. We are not too sure about the overall quality of Pakistani films either. Our own industry is struggling to get decent initial for our films, 9 out of 10 films are failing. Films like Mubarakan and Munna Michael are collecting 5-6 crore with successful directors and rising stars. So even if Pakistani films start releasing here, it’ll take time for it grow in popularity. Q. Which actor and actress has the most Top Grossers of The Year in Bollywood history? A. From 1989, Salman Khan has topped the year 9 times (not including Kuch Kuch Hota Hai) last was Bajrangi Bhaijaan in 2015. Aamir Khan has delivered the highest grosser of the year 7 times, last was Dangal last year. SRK 5 times, last was Om Shanti Om in 2007. After that it’s Hrithik, 3 times, last was Dhoom 2 in 2016. Sunny Deol twice, last was Gadar 2001. Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn and others have never topped the year. Q. Is Battle Of Saragarhi starring Akshay Kumar happening with Karan Johar and Salman Khan ? A. It’s not happening in the near future. Salman Khan has backed out, but this has not been officially confirmed. Q. Is Ajay Devgn really making Sons of Sardar ? A. Not happening now. He had planned the film first, but the same subject was taken by Karan Johar / Akshay Kumar for Battle of Saragarhi. Ajay will now make Taanaji. Q. What are your expectations from Toilet Ek Prem Katha and Baadshaho? A. Toilet Ek Prem Katha Trailer got a good response, but there’s been nothing exciting since. The songs haven’t really worked. They’ve also revealed a lot about the film in the promos, so it’ll be down to word-of-mouth. At this moment, we expect a slightly better opening than Jolly LLB 2. Baadshaho has got a mixed response. Q. Gentleman vs Judwaa 2 vs Padmavati vs Dutt. Which among this movie will be biggest hit for younger actors? A. Our pick would be Dutt. It has both the best actor and best director. Q. How is the buzz for JHMS? A. Good, but only at major cities. Q. What is the difference between theatre and screen? A. One 3-screen multiplex counts as one theatre, but screen-count will be 3. Q. Seeing the recent work, success – failure, age who will be in Top 5 and Top 10 in coming 5 years among the actors? A. Ranbir, Varun and Ranveer have found acceptance. But it’s still difficult to imagine this industry without stalwarts like Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar.

The last few months have been depressing for the film industry and the trade. Apart from ‘Hindi Medium’ and a couple of other smaller films, almost all medium to big budget films have failed miserably. Not only are films not performing in the long run, but most films with star-value aren’t even getting decent starts on Friday morning. The lack of interest in Hindi films is becoming evident with shows on the opening day getting cancelled due to lack of audience. 

Q. Who do you think who will be most successful in this decade? A. It’ll be tough to beat Salman Khan this decade. He already has 8 blockbusters. So unless Aamir Khan starts doing more films or SRK turns things around and delivers 4-5 consecutive blockbusters, Salman has already done enough to top this decade. Q. Do you still think Tubelight will collect 146 crore as per your prediction? A. No, it’ll fall well short. Even a 130 crore total is looking difficult, the film has crashed. Q. In your last Q&A session you said that Dhoom 3 & Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo are the top two most expensive movies of Bollywood made till date and Padmavati is going to break all records of Bollywood in terms of budget. But in your site I saw the budget of Dhoom 3 and PRDP was 115 cr. And Mohenjo-Daro and BAJIRAO MASTANI budget was 138 cr and 130 cr respectively. Pls can you clear my doubt.And tell me the top 5 most expensive movies of Bollywood.And whats the budget of Padmavati and SRK dwarf film. Pls I am asking it for the third time(list of expensive movies) Pls I hope you will not disappoint me. A. Sometimes, we also mention the acquisition cost of films i.e the price for which the theatrical rights were sold for. Purely in terms of the amount of money spent on production, Padmavati is going to be the most expensive Hindi film of all time. It’s budget will cross 170 crore. SRK-Aanand L Rai film will be expensive too, the shooting schedule is one of the longest for SRK and he’ll be expanding his VFX team too. It’s an ambitious film, which can go on to be a major grosser for SRK. The other big budget film will be ‘Thugs of Hindostan’. Q. What is your Prediction now for Tubelight ? The movie is almost crashed since Friday is just 2 crore ? A. 125 crore lifetime. Q. Which is biggest flop between FAN & TUBELIGHT ? A. Theatrically, Tubelight is the bigger failure as distributors lost more money on the film. The losses are humongous for the distributors, but producers of Tubelight made a lot of money. A better comparison would be Dilwale vs Tubelight. Both films were profitable for the producers, distributors lost. But SRK covered some of the distributors losses on Dilwale, which was a very nice gesture. Q. Is there any chance of Akshay Kumar overtaking Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan in terms of box office opening after the disaster of Tubelight and average collections of SRK movies? A. Salman Khan is way ahead at the moment. Both in terms of opening and average lifetime collections of his last 3 films. He can only be compared to Aamir Khan. Shah Rukh is ahead of Akshay in terms of opening and even a ‘Jolly LLB 2’ with a solo release, fell well below the collections of Raees. And barring the last two films (FAN and Raees), SRK films used to easily outgross Akshay’s highest grosser. So both in terms of opening and lifetime, there’s a significant gap between the Khans and the rest – both in India and Overseas. Q. How Much Jagga Jasoos Need to collect for the Clean hit Status? And how’s response from trade as well as audiences after 2nd theatrical trailer…. A. It has to collect more than 100 crore. The costs have increased due to re-shoots and delay in releasing the film. The 2nd trailer has received a mixed response. The concern for ‘Jagga Jasoos’ is, the film looks interesting from the promos, Ranbir holds attention. But holding attention over a 2 minute promo is easy, but making this kind of film engrossing for more than 2 hours is going to be the challenge. We think it’s either going to be a runaway acclaimed hit or fall flat. There’s unlikely to be anything in between for a film like this. Q. Do you think Jab Harry Met Sejal can beat Tubelight’s 64cr weekend (as was without festival) in normal 3 days if the word-of-mouth is partly negative? A. It would need excellent word-of-mouth for a 65-crore weekend. From what we’ve seen so far from the promos of Jab Harry Met Sejal, it’s unlikely to come anywhere close to 20 crore on the first day. We’ll have to wait for the trailer and hope it’s better. Even a film like Tubelight has made one thing very clear, star power alone means nothing if it isn’t backed with box office favouring content. The star in both Fan and Raees were the same, but on a partial holiday FAN did 19 crore (actual value after deducting holiday advantage is around 15-16 crore), but Raees with excellent promos did 20 crore on a non-holiday inspite of clash with another big film. Q. Who will collect more Toilet Ek Prem Katha or Jab Harry Met Sejal? A. We’d put our money on Toilet Ek Prem Katha at this point in time, as it should appeal towards a far larger section of the audience. The trailer has received a very good response and there’s plenty of positivity about the film in the trade too. Having said that, we’d have to wait to see what sort of response the two films get from the audience. Q. What is the life time collection of Bahubali 2 in Hindi version? A. Rs 510 crore net. All Time Blockbuster. Q. Your prediction for JHMS is just 130 crore.now JHMS have solo release having partial holiday on Monday.so in my opinion JHMS can collect 130 crore in 1st week itself with positive or even mixed word of mouth.what you have to say about this ? A. 130 crore isn’t a small number. Raees collected 130 crore even though it opened to 20 crore on Day 1. It’s difficult for a film like JHMS (again, from what we’ve seen so far) to collect 130 crore in the first week, because that would mean the opening has to be in the 25 crore range and weekend 80 crore. Highly unlikely for this sort of film, even with the added backup of corporate bookings etc that SRK manages to get. Q. Do you think Hindi industry is in a crisis with newcomers not getting the hits and the superstars not getting the big grossers….and after bahubali and dangal noone else in the industry is able to get the audiences back to theaters. A. The problem is the content. The audience is there, more than willing to pay for the right film that entertains. But even some of our major stars and directors have now started making films that only the metro city audience can relate to. And even at metro cities, the audience for most of the films that are made today, is limited. Q. Wasn’t the trailer of Toilet-EPK released a bit early. Normally trailers are released around 40 days before the film. But isn’t 2 months too long? Audience might lose interest (like it happened with Baby). Want to know your take on this. A. Raees Teaser was released a year and half before its theatrical release, yet it retained its freshness. So we can’t be generalising. The audience is willing to wait if they like the trailer. The campaign of ‘Toilet Ek Prem Katha’ is a little different from other films. It’s a film that they’ve made for a social cause, to increase awareness on the need for toilets and cleanliness. It’s still a word-of-mouth film. It should take a solid initial, but the goal seems to be to get as many people as possible to watch the film. Educate and entertain at the same time. Q. Can judwaa 2 cross 20 cr nett mark in south states his previous highest is abcd 2 – 13 cr A. In south states? If you are talking about all-India collections, Judwaa 2 has a very good chance of crossing the 15 crore mark and getting closer to 20 crore on Day 1. It’s a big film that most would want to watch. Q. Comedy films haven’t done well in recent times, will this affect Judwaa 2, atleast as far as expectations are concermed coz it’s not a big franchise like Golmaal. A. Well made comedy films will always have an audience. It’s just that we haven’t had those films in recent times. Q. Gold, Crack or Mogul- which is potentially the biggest film among these three? A. It’s too early to comment on any of those films, but from what we’ve heard, it would be Gold. Q. Can Tubelight still beat Raees and Rowdy Rathore to become the highest grosser of the year 2017 so far and the month of June respectively? A. No. Q. After Tubelight flops at BO can we say that RAEES is the winner of First half of the year? Also Raees is a highest grossing hindi movie 2017. A. Bahubali 2 aside, Raees is the biggest grosser. But the most successful film in the first half of 2017 is Badrinath Ki Dulhania. Q. Padmavati has to be an outstanding film to get anywhere close to recovering its costs, going by the speed at which the makers are determined to complete the film, they might have to compromise on the quality somewhere or the other. Won’t that be a risk? A. This was the topic that we were discussing yesterday. The makers currently do not want to let go of the date that they have (17 November) because the first three months next year are packed with movie releases. Due to various delays, they are shooting non-stop to get the film ready in time. Bhansali is not known to compromise on production standards, but with a huge amount of money at stake, Padmavati will have to be an exceptional film (atleast upto Bajirao Mastani standards) to work at the box office. Any compromise anywhere (visual effects, editing etc) will harm the film. Q. Thanks for the Q and A indicine. Always looking forward. I want to know if they are releasing trailer of JHMS or not. Also, god forbid, if it somehow underperforms or opens below expectations, will trade and you people write off SRK? A. There will be a trailer. No question of writing off SRK. But given the fact that he still commands a fan following across the country, it’s disappointing to see films like ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ which severely restricts the potential of business that his films can do. At this age (we think) romance should be the side angle and not the main story of films. And even if it’s a love story, it has to have a desi feel to it. Do note however that we are purely talking from a business point of view. Films need not necessarily be made only to earn 200-300 crore – even though those big grossers often mean that a larger section of the movie going audience is watching and enjoying films in theatre. Q. What has been the response to Jagga Jasoos Trailer? Looking at the trailer and songs, is it safe to say that it can open around 15 cr? Also, since the trailer has shown a lot of potential, can it actually do big at the box office? A. 15 crore would be expecting too much from the film. We think it’s going to open in the 10 crore range. Q. What will be the verdict of tubelight? Considering distributors lost more than 50 % and loss is more than 100 cr? A. It’s a Flop. Q. So isn’t it quite clear that along with content, audience want entertainment? Combination of both is required now. A. Yes, but how many wholesome entertainers have we had in recent times? Very few. Badrinath Ki Dulhania wasn’t a great film, but it was entertaining and catered to audience across the country and they came in big enough numbers for a Varun Dhawan starrer. Q.Who is bigger star? Shradhaa or Alia in terms of fan following. A. Currently, it’s Alia Bhatt by a fairly big distance. Q. After failure of Tubelight, your expectations from Tiger Zinda Hai? And also Salman Khan’s upcoming movies in chronological order and their BO prospectives? A. Expectations from Tiger Zinda Hai does not change. Unless there’s a major slide due to poor films, fan-following or interest to watch an actor on the big screen, does not change with one or two failures. Salman remains unaffected, the only thing that’s changed is the perception and that aura that he had managed to create that his presence is bigger than his films. Tiger Zinda Hai is a big film, it has those commercial elements and the release date to make it the biggest film of 2017. Q. So according to you the mini trails of JHMS are not creating an impact. Will it backfire the buzz? How is the movies buzz in trade circle? A. No interest currently to watch the film, except on the internet and amongst fans. They need a good trailer. Q. According to you, what will be the first day box office collection of JHMS & why are you sounding very negative regarding the film just on the basis of few mini trials specially when even the theatrical hasnt been released ? A. We were accused of being biased and negative even when we did the ‘Tubelight Teaser’ report and said it was the weakest teaser for a Salman Khan film in a long time. But after the release of the film, everyone started saying that the trailer and teaser did not get a good response. It’s the same with Jab Harry Met Sejal. We did a theatre survey during the release of Tubelight and the interest to watch Jab Harry Met Sejal was less than 25% of Raees. Even at metro cities it was the same. Internet buzz can be created, we get to now the real picture only at theatres from the paying-public. Also, to avoid any unnecessary negativity, we haven’t done any article on Jab Harry Met Sejal. It’s only in the QnA that we have spoken about the response. Article will only be published after the trailer. Q. Apart from 28% GST will there be additional municipal tax by local bodies on theaters based on their own discretion? A. Apart from Tamilnadu, all other states will have only GST at 28% for tickets over 100 rupees and 18% for ticket costing less than 100. Tamilnadu is double taxed at the moment, there will be protests because double tax will affect both the Tamil Film Industry as well as business of other films. Exhibitors will end up paying nearly 60% as tax as well. That ends the QnA for today. Thank you for joining us.

Q. Which upcoming films for the remainder of 2017 can have a better opening day than Tubelight? A. The best bet would be ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’, which is certain to cross 20 crore on Day 1. ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ has a chance, but from the promos that we’ve seen so far, neither are the reports positive nor are the chances of a 20 crore plus opening very high. Q. How important will be the opening day and weekend of Tiger Zinda Hai for Salman Khan to have a solo Eid release next year..Just by looking at the numbers of Tubelight, will anyone announce their film for next Eid and opt for a clash with Salman Khan? A. It’s highly unlikely that anyone would want to announce their film against what remains the year’s biggest release ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’. It’s very different from ‘Tubelight’ and even negative reviews from critics may not affect the box office prospects of ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’ like it did for ‘Tubelight’. And although a good trailer will be important, ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’ will be catering to Salman’s core fanbase at mass centres. They might give a movie like ‘Tubelight’ a miss, but will come out in big numbers for the action-entertainer ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’. Q. Do you think makers of Jab Harry met Sejal makers did a good job by preponing the film by one week?Will it has a chance to cross 25cr on 1st day?Can JHMS cross 200cr in india considering the fact that now it has a one open week & full of holidays 2nd week? A. Decision to move ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ could prove to be a good one, because the film has one open week at the box office. But from Shah Rukh Khan’s point-of-view, it has sent out a very wrong message. The very fact that he was willing to give up on a holiday release to avert a clash, put his 2018 Christmas date at risk. A big film might / will sense this weakness and announce their film for Christmas, expecting Shah Rukh to move. As for 25 crore Day 1 and 200 crore lifetime, we do not want to sound overly negative, but the idea to release mini trailers hasn’t worked. It’s looking like a very niche ‘high society / urban’ film and from the survey we did this weekend, less than 15% of the family audience said they would be wanting to watch it in theatres. They need to put out a good trailer and the music album has to click. Q. Indicine did Tubelight prove that NO one in bigger than the film itself? As arguably the biggest superstar (right now) failed to bring audiences to theatre alone on the strength of his stardom? A. A 20-crore start isn’t outright bad, very few stars get these sort of numbers even for their biggest of films. It only looks mediocre when compared to the high standards that Salman has set over the years and the high costs for which the film was sold – expecting it to be another Bajrangi Bhaijaan. It has just come at a wrong time, when business has seen a drastic change post the success of Bahubali 2. As for ‘no one is bigger than the film’ it’s certainly true – a good trailer and commercial massy elements are absolutely essential, even for a Salman Khan film. His fans want to see him as a hero, they don’t want to see him play the underdog and cry throughout. You can’t make Rajnikanth cry throughout the film in the south, the film will be rejected, the fans won’t like it. One failure doesn’t change anything. It didn’t change for SRK after FAN, Aamir after Talaash, Hrithik after Mohenjo Daro or Akshay after numerous setbacks. Let’s not take credit away from what has been one of the best runs the industry has ever seen. 6-7 Eid blockbusters, many of them ‘mediocre’ films perception wise, but were lapped up and carried by the masses, because they offered entertainment value. It’s almost impossible to maintain that level, one failure was due. Q. Why Tubelight failed? Even Dangal had low pre release buzz A. We’ve got to understand that expectations from Aamir and Salman films are very different. Brand Aamir is all about the trust that the audience has in his films. The contribution from Aamir in Dangal isn’t just restricted to his acting, but he works closely on the script, casting, editing etc. He ensures that his films meet the high standards that we’ve come to expect out of him, unless it’s a commercially safe film like Dhoom 3. On the other hand, Salman films are all about action, whistles, heroism, larger than life.. even Bajrangi Bhaijaan had those moments. Tubelight didn’t and his core fanbase weren’t interested. Simple as that. Wrong film to release during a festival like Eid. Q. As Tubelight looks like a average film ? Will someone still dare to challenge the dates of Salman’s Films ? A. Will depend on Tiger Zinda Hai. If that films opens upto Salman Khan standards, all will be well again. The aura that he commanded, especially during Eid which had become like his fortress, has been broken. But to challenge his commercial films during Eid, will still be a mighty task for anyone in the industry – barring Aamir Khan and his classics. The film with Remo D’Souza, however, looks risky. He’s had a few successful films but he isn’t a good director. Q. How is the response to jab harry met Sejal mini trails n the first song ? Will it be able to pull off opening of 25 crore ? A. From the survey we did at theatres, at the ground level, the response isn’t positive. It needs a very good trailer to get anywhere close to 25 crore. Q. What do You think srk was Thinking while signing “Jab Harry Met Sejal”? I mean, he is in his so-called “bad-phase” and he choose an off-beat film with that type of director, while he needed a pan-india film (probably we will have to wait till Anand L Rai film for that to happen). And what are your expectations from it? (I have full faith in your vision, as you were 100% right for Bahubali 2 opening and even the Tubelight opening) so what does your “sixth sense” say ? A. No, we weren’t right for either Bahubali 2 or Tubelight. We didn’t expect Bahubali 2 to open at 40 crore, it was unpredictable. And Tubelight, even though the trailer didn’t work, we thought Salman’s pull would be good enough for a Kick level opening. We got ‘Tubelight’ wrong, but noone expected it to open so low. About Jab Harry Met Sejal. Honestly, we aren’t convinced. It’s too niche for a Shah Rukh Khan film. The second promo, Indemnity Bond with sexual clauses, has received a horrendous response on the ground. The third promo has been liked better, but you expect more out of a SRK film – he has audience in smaller centres too, but they may not even understand this sort of a film. We’ll have to wait and see if they put out a good trailer. So far, the campaign itself hasn’t worked. The ‘mini trailer’ thing doesn’t work. It didn’t work both for Dear Zindagi or Meri Pyaari Bindu. It’s unfortunate, but Shah Rukh’s choice of films isn’t doing justice to his huge stardom and fan-following that reaches every nook and corner of the country. Let’s hope the trailer is better. Q. Did Salman Khan downfall started with Tubelight? A. Salman has seen times when the morning shows of his films didn’t even get 5% audience. He’s made one of the strongest comebacks the industry has seen, so one failure after a string of blockbusters, changes nothing. Q. Do you think Tubelight will cross 200core and become hit? A. Highly unlikely. It has to touch 30 crore on Eid holiday, but the reports simply aren’t in favour of the film. Q. Indicine plz answer this I have read that Tubelight needs 135 cr to be a hit and in your prediction article you stated that even if it does 175 cr it’ll be below average / flop how could this be? Budget is 100 crs including marketing cost so why the breakeven is too high I know that distributors might make losses but even Dilwale made loss and you gave it average Raees did 120 and its above average how? A. Tubelight was sold for 132 crore, domestic. It needed to collect upwards of 250 crore. It’ll fall well short. It’s a theatrical failure, both in terms of perception and heavy losses that the distributors will incur. Tubelight has shocked the trade, many sub-distributors will probably lose their life-savings over this. The producers have made a lot of money, but it would be nice of them to refund and make up for some losses – like Shah Rukh did after Dilwale debacle. Q. You don’t answer my questions anyway.. still cant help but ask.. how come.. doing a movie be pro for Salman’s tubelight.. isnt any project a risk since you dont know wether it would work or not… and how come a major actor whose movies make 200 cr be at any risk along with a big director….a movie must be judged according to its finished product and not what went in pre production..thats what you said for dangal where in aamir went for transformation of his body…this is clearly double standards by indicine…cant you just accept tubelight is a bad movie and be honest… i cant help but think you try to cater to the fans of the actor so that your your viewership of the website does not fall… im sure many feel this way… would be brave of you if you answer this A. Sorry, but your question isn’t clear. What’s your question exactly? If catering to the popularity of stars and traffic was the most important thing for us, we’d be praising everything that Shah Rukh does – because his films still gets us the highest traffic. Ours is just an opinion, it’s your choice to agree with it or not. Q. PRDP was appreciated by masses and rejected by multiplex audience. But Tubelight has been rejected by both I think this is the reason for low collection? A. Films like Prem Ratan Dhan Payo will always have an audience. The heartland of India loves these films, Barjatya films also have family audience. So that was good enough for PRDP. Tubelight was neither here nor there. It was thrashed by the critics, Salman chose a wrong film to take on the critics – the same statement during Tiger Zinda Hai would have made no difference. But since Tubelight lacked support from masses, the dependence on multiplex audience in cities was high. And it’s this section of audience that reads reviews. When was the last time trade analysts rejected a big film featuring a top star and called it a colossal disappointment? Films far worse have been rated 4 star or more. Q. Indicine can u explain a director who has made brilliant films like Kabul express ,New York, Bajrangi, Phantom. How did he how terribly wrong this time? A. Kabir didn’t fail as a director, but he failed as a writer in Tubelight. The writing was weak. Kabir is credited both for the story and screenplay, unlike his other films. Q. Don’t you agree now that SRK is simply biggest when it comes to crowd-pulling? A. One of the biggest, certainly. Is he the biggest currently? That’s debatable, because FAN released on a partial holiday and did 19 crore. Actual value reducing the holiday advantage would be 15 crore. All these are only perceptions. After averting the Sultan clash last year, Salman appeared invincible and much bigger. One below-par opening and the other two (Aamir and SRK) look bigger. If Jab Harry Met Sejal doesn’t get a huge initial, again questions will be raised. Dangal record looked safe for years, until a dubbed film like Bahubali 2 thrashed it. All this keeps changing and that’s what keeps the excitement of box office and big films going. What matters at the end of the day is the lifetime collections and if films are making money for the producers, distributors and industry in general. Q. After watching response of Tubelight, can you say that Toilet Ek Prem Katha is carrying more buzz than Tubelight. A. That’s not true. Toilet is unlikely to get to 20 crore on Day 1, atleast on real value. Because if the film gets tax exemption in BJP states as rumours suggest and the added GST benefit – we could get 20 crore plus net. But gross collections will certainly be lower and it’s a smaller film too. The trailer has received a good response, but predictions will change depending on how GST shapes up and tax exemption. Q. Is the buzz for Jagga Jasoos increasing or its the same ? A. It is increasing. The film might just about surprise at the box office. Currently, it looks like a 10 crore plus opening. Again, we’ll have to wait for GST implementation and see how it goes from there. Also, Ranbir is brilliant. He is single-handedly generating interest for the film. Q. Do you think Tiger Zinda hai will get a solo release now after the debacle of tubelight ? And is it true that dabangg 3 is announced for EID 2018 ? Plz answer to my questions . Thank you :) A. With the crunch for release dates, anything could happen, but Tiger Zinda Hai is too big a film for any other big film to challenge it. YRF is powerful too. We don’t see it happening. No official confirmation on Dabangg 3 for Eid. Q. How big flop is Tubelight ? A. Pretty major. The last hope is big growth on Eid, if that doesn’t come, the distributors will lose around 50 crore of their investment. Q. Among the recently released Semi hits Raees, Kaabil and Tubelight, which film you think distributors lost more money on (in numbers please)? A. Tubelight will be the biggest loss-making film if it wraps below 200. Q. I don’t want ask anything except to know why there is no like and dislike option in your comment section anymore? May I know the reason. A. The server load of the website was very high in the last couple of days. Our tech team said the thumbs up and down could be the reason, so we deactivated it. We’ll be putting it back again soon, maybe tomorrow. Thanks for your interest. Q. Do you think toilet-EPK have the potential to cross 150cr if the film have very good WOM A. We’d like to wait for GST to talk about numbers for those films. We could be providing gross numbers, so those numbers will obviously be much higher. In today’s terms, 150 crore is a possibility for Toilet if it’s a good movie. Tax exemption, especially in major states right from the first week, will obviously significantly improve its chances. Q. How much releases Akshay has in 2018? A. Akshay could even plan a film in June 2018 and release it in the same year. So no comments for now. Q. SRK or Akshay? Who is doing better 2007-2017? A. There’s no comparison. SRK has always worked at a much higher level, both in terms of opening and lifetime collections. His failures collect more than Akshay’s biggest grossers. Having said that, Akshay does smaller films, shoots them in record time and in recent times his films have been more profitable for all involved too. He is the backbone for exhibitors, if he can give four 100 crore grossers every year – there’s nothing like it. SRK films should ideally be collecting upwards of 200 crore every time, given the starts that he gets, but his last 3-4 films have fallen well short. Q. Baadshaho teaser response and Box office predictions. Its almost a trailer. A. Good response. It should take a 11-13 crore start, but we’ll wait for the trailer. And also GST. Q. Mubarkan looks like a flop. Given the poor trailer and poor release date. Your take? A. Trailer has received a mixed response. But it’s a Anees Bazmee film. If the film turns out to be entertaining, who knows? Release date is unfortunately crowded now. There’s Indu Sarkar on the same day. Jab Harry Met Sejal in the second week. Munna Michael the week before. When there’s such a heavy flow of releases, the audience will pick and choose. Only good films will work. Q. Can 2.0 do Bahubali 2 in Hindi? If it receives positive response? A. Highly unlikely. We’ve got to understand that Bahubali 2 was a combination of unique release circumstances. It was marketing and genius of Rajamouli at its best. A fantastic first film, a big question which everyone wanted to know. The answer in itself couldn’t be summed up in a tweet or Facebook post. Plus the first film reached out to a crazy section of audience on television. It was the first film that combined the might of the south with that of the rest of India. Robot 2.0 will undoubtedly be huge in the South, but it doesn’t quite tick all the boxes like Bahubali 2. Anil Thadani is distributing it, we’ll have to wait and see how they promote it, what the trailer looks like and how much value Akshay Kumar adds to the film. Q. So SRK in a clash managed to do 20.42 crs & Salman in a solo + Eid Release just manages to cross 20 crs.. Even Fan did approx 19 crs which a niche film.. So isn’t SRK the biggest crowd puller as far as opening is concerned? A. Comparing Raees directly to Tubelight isn’t a fair comparison, because Raees had some of the best trailer and promos for any film in recent times. Tubelight trailer was rejected. Also FAN did 19 crore on a partial holiday. End of it all, there’s no point comparing the two or three (Aamir included). They are all huge in their own way. Depending on film, all are capable of bumper opening. SRK and Salman are sheer fan-following and craze, Aamir’s stardom is different but he brings in bigger audience for his films. Let’s hope all three do well and take the industry forward in tough ‘Post-Bahubali’ times. Q. Will GST affect the collection of Tubelight from the next week? A. GST will prove to be beneficial for Hindi films. So there’s no question of the film getting affected. Barring a couple of circuits, the tax rates in two major circuits will come down. Although it’s a different question altogether whether or not Tubelight will continue flickering in its second week. Q. You guys are doing wonderful job.. I like reading your detailed answers .. What you think is gone wrong with tubelight? Is it safe to say now that Amir khan is biggest star in the country..because Bahubali doesn’t happen everyday .. And seems like Amir will be the one next to cross 400 domestic .. He almost did it with Dangal.. Your say thanks A. Aamir Khan is in a different league. It’s unfair to compare him with anyone else, because the quality of his films are well above the rest. Bajrangi Bhaijaan is Salman’s best and it became his highest grosser. Aamir has around 3-4 films of that level or better in the last 10 years. For SRK, we probably have to go back to Chak De India for that classic – which would easily be a 300 crore plus grosser today. It’s a lot in the Dangal space. All these guys have the stardom, what’s important is they continue to do the right films. Salman looked invincible until a week ago, but last Friday changed that perception. It could happen with Aamir too, because the expectations of his films are so high. It did with Talaash, which was a niche film. But Aamir was smart enough not to release it during a festive weekend. Salman pitched Tubelight for Eid, which with the advantage of hindsight, looks like a very poor decision now. Even Tubelight for Christmas was a better choice, because releasing Tiger Zinda Hai this weekend, would’ve kept his Eid aura intact. Q. How is the response to the trailer of Toilet-Ek Prem Katha from both trade and public. A. Both good. Q. Will tubelights failure Impact jagga jasoos? It is first family entertainer to release after tubelight. A. No, it won’t. Q. Is Sohail bhai unlucky for Salman bhai? A. Unfair to blame Sohail. Blame him for Jai Ho, not this. That’s the end of QnA for today, 33 questions were answered in 3 hours. Thank you for joining us and apologies to those whose questions haven’t been answered.

Note: We are facing server issues due to the huge amount of traffic that we have been receiving from the time the QnA was announced. Please be patient and we apologise for the inconvenience. There’s little that we can do when so many visitors visit the website at the same time. Q. When is the Eid, Sunday or Monday? A. The official government holiday for Eid is on Monday. Q. What are the inside reports for Tubelight? A. The pre-release reports are fair. We’ll have to wait until atleast tomorrow evening to get the real picture. Q. If Salman Khan manages to score another huge Blockbuster with Tubelight, where will that put Salman Khan in the all time list considering it’s a movie away from his regular image? A. Salman has already achieved almost everything that there is to achieve in the industry, but in terms of opening and lifetime ‘Tubelight’ could be his biggest test during the Eid period. Neither the teaser nor the trailer have received the kind of response that some of his previous Eid releases have. There’s good reason for that too. Tubelight simply does not have those ingredients. It doesn’t have Salman in one of those larger-than-life roles, it doesn’t have a mainstream female star, nor is it high on massy action. The music album also lacks that outright chartbuster that some of Salman’s Eid releases have had. With Tubelight, we only have two selling factors – Salman Khan himself and the credibility that the film carries because it’s been directed by Kabir Khan. Q. Indicine don’t you think Salman Khan should stop releasing his trailer on Star channel? View on youtube decreases due to release of promo in TV. A. Such things don’t matter at all. Youtube records hold little or no value, it makes zero difference at the box office. What matters the most is letting maximum number of people know that a Salman Khan film called ‘Tubelight’ is releasing in theatres during Eid and airing trailer on Star Network of channels ensures that it gets plenty of eyeballs. The only thing that matters at the end of it all is how a film fares at the box office, whether the investors have recovered money and made profits. Collections also indicate whether people have liked the film or not and those are the only reasons why most films are made. No one cares about Youtube records if a film fails at the box office. Q. How much will ‘Tubelight’ collect at India BO and overseas BO? A. Prior to release we can only talk about expectations. The trade ‘expects’ Tubelight to collect upwards of 300 crore. Overseas, $25million plus. Q. Tubelight buzz compared to other movies like Sultan, Bajrangi Bhaijaan? A. Out of the films you mentioned, the order from highest to lowest buzz would be Sultan, Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Tubelight. That doesn’t mean the interest is low. It’s only when compared to more commercial looking Salman films does the hype around Tubelight seem less than what we’ve come to expect over the years. Q. Can Tubelight challenge highest single day? collection? A. It won’t be anywhere close to some of the highest single-day collections. Q. Teaser reaction of Baadshaho? Best possible total gross with huge acceptance by the audiences. A. The response to the teaser of Baadshaho is very good. The best in recent times after Toilet: Ek Prem Katha. Q. Total Number of Screen worldwide for Tubelight? A. Approx 4300 screens in India and 1000+ screens overseas. Q. In my city Bhubaneswar, Tubelight is not showing such high advance booking like other movies of Salman Khan do. Is this the condition in other major circuits of India? A. The advance booking is ‘above average’. Not extraordinary like Sultan last year. Spot-booking has to be good tomorrow if the film has record excellent opening day numbers.

Q. Will Prabhas’ Saaho do a good business in Hindi belts? A. It certainly isn’t going to be anywhere close to ‘Bahubali 2’. But depending on the content of the film and the way they market it pan-India, it has the potential to surprise. Things could get really interesting if a film like ‘Saaho’ manages to get a 8-10 crore opening in the Hindi markets. We do not really have stars who can pull the audience – both in the core south markets as well as the Hindi markets. Prabhas films will have pan-India face value now, but it would all come down to the content of the film. Q. Do you think SRK – Aanand L Rai movie will appeal to a larger section of audience? Is it universally appealing? A. It’s meant to be an universal film. Almost all Aanand L Rai films have been mostly shot in India and told Indian stories. The concept of the film is different too. It’s going to be a film that will celebrate the life of differently-abled people. Shah Rukh in an interview recently has spoken about them not needing our sympathy and also that the film will have humour and romance. Going to be an interesting film for sure, let’s wait and see how it shapes up. Q. At the start of 2016, with Sultan and Dangal to release, you said “Salman Khan is in his best phase”. Come 2017, Dangal has beaten Sultan Worldwide by a mimimum 1500 crores. Your take on this ‘best run’. Please? A. Aamir still does too few films to really challenge Salman. Between now and the release of Thugs of Hindostan, Salman will have three releases and even if two out of those three films go on to be huge blockbusters, it’ll be bigger than one Aamir film becoming an all-time grosser. Salman is almost working at Akshay Kumar’s pace – just that his films are made on a larger scale, hence requiring a lot more time to make. But inspite of him having 2-3 releases over a 1-year period, each of his films are easily crossing the 200 crore mark. Aamir’s style of working is completely different, quality is much more important for him than quantity – which is what his audience expect out of him too. Q. How is the buzz of Tubelight. Is the buzz anywhere closer to Sultan or Bajrangi Bhaijaan. A. It isn’t. We did a survey on Saturday (3 Jun) in theatres, results will be published in an article. But the overall response to the trailer is mixed, better than the teaser. Not close to as positive as Sultan or Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Q. Does Secret Superstar have the potential to open and earn on the same level as Golmaal Again just like Taare Zameen Par did with Welcome. On paper it looks very difficult, but Aamir Khan can never be underestimated. A. Not going to happen. Golmaal 4 will collect atleast 2-3 times more in its first weekend. It’s a huge film. More commercial, bigger release, massive franchise. Q. In the last QnA secession you said that Salman Khan can be called bigger than the film if Tubelight opens to record breaking numbers. Do you expect Tubelight to open to record breaking on pre-eid or you want to say Salman Khan is not big star because Tubelight will not open to record breaking.?Can you give more details on this?? A. The reason for that is, there’s very little face-value or even commercial value apart from Salman’s presence. An action film will still get an audience in mass centres, but this is more emotional. The opening is unlikely to be earth-shattering. But with Salman in the film, you never quite know. We’ll have to wait and see what sort of initial it takes. Q. Whats your honest take on 2.0 shifting its date. Do you really think the vfx is the main reason? Do you really think Ajays Golmaal Again is the main reason? Looking at performance of Bahubaali 2, I don’t see any reason for Shankar shifting the date because definitely it should have easily beaten Golmaal again at the box office. A. It was only after Shankar and his team internally decided to move the film, did Golmaal makers announce their film for Diwali. Golmaal was re-announced for Diwali, before the news of Robot 2.0 postponement.. this was mutual and planned because they didn’t want any other film to take Diwali and then get into a controversy. This is what we’ve heard internally, through reliable sources. Q. SRK’s next with Imtiaz Ali can hit the cord with the masses, specially in the Punjab zone….what are your views about it? A. Punjab should be one of the better performing circuits for the film. The makers are also planning on finalising a Punjabi title. Q. What are the public response of songs Tubelight ? A. The Radio song is a hit. Q. Has Hrithik signed any film and which are they? A. He hasn’t signed any film. Krrish 4 is in its scripting stage. Q. Why Tubelight’s trailer and song videos are not creating much buzz? How much will low youtube viewership affects the business of the film? A. Youtube views don’t make any difference. Begum Jaan has 31 million views, but Tubelight will beat its lifetime collections hours after its release on 23rd June. The ‘Radio’ song has worked, the response to the trailer isn’t unanimous like Sultan or Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Q. Your expectation for Toilet-EPK at the box office and whether it can beat the lifetime collection of SRK film? A. Such questions can never be answered with certainty because of how unpredictable and surprising the box office can be. Hindi Medium wasn’t even expected to be competition for Half Girlfriend, but the film will end up with a bigger lifetime total. Compared to that, the SRK film and Toilet Ek Prem Katha are more evenly matched. If Toilet finds acceptance and audience can relate to the story, then anything is possible. We can only talk about the initial at the moment. SRK film should have a good lead over the first weekend.. but the test always comes during the working weekdays. Lifetime totals are always more important than opening day collections. Q. Why nobody was interested in Baywatch except the media. And why Priyanka was showing that she is having a major role but in actual it was pathetic? A. On the ground, there was hardly any interest to watch Baywatch. The PR machinery driven media over-hyped it, but its only the box office that exposes the reality. If the trailer isn’t interesting enough, the audience is unwilling to pay. Simple as that. Even in the multiplex chains, Hindi Medium sold more tickets and collected more in its 3rd weekend as compared to Baywatch in the first weekend. Q. Deepika Padukone’s XXX is a huge hit compared to Baywatch, am I right? Please do tell me. A. It looks much bigger now with Baywatch becoming a global disaster, but Deepika’s ‘XXX: Return Of The Xander Cage’ also underperformed even though it got a decent initial. Q. Avatar collection in rupees? A. Approximately Rs 17,900 crore – which is about 9-10 times more than the highest grosser from India, Dangal. Q. How is Ittefaq shaping up ? Will it be bigger than Ek Villain at the box-office? A. Not expected to be anywhere close to Ek Villain. It doesn’t need to be, because the budget is very low. Q. Salman said he will work with Sanjay Leela Bhansali but noone is sure if he was serious. Do you have any information? A. Bhansali has apparently approached Salman for a film. But Salman hasn’t signed the film. Even if it happens, it’s not going to release before 2019-20. Q. What is the total number of footfalls for Bahubali-2 for all languages ? A. It’s difficult to put a number for films like Bahubali 2, even the producers wouldn’t know the exact number of footfalls / tickets sold. It will certainly be over the 10 crore mark all India, all versions. It’s by far the most watched film in the last 20 years. Q. Sanjay Dutt or Sunny Deol? Who was a bigger star and who has a more successful career? A. Undoubtedly, Sunny Deol. Some of his films have taken earth-shattering openings. Q. What is Sajid Khan doing nowadays? A. Working on the script of his next film and approaching actors. Q. Would you put bet on Tiger Zinda Hai breaking opening weekend record of Hindi films(Not including Bahubali 2)? A. It should. Even Bahubali 2 could be challenged. Q. It is 5th time in recent time that Salman is doing 2 films in a year. But there is difference this time. Earlier his both films were similar and had same target audience. Ready and Bodyguard were both masala entertainers targeted to masses. Same for ETT-Dabang 2 and Kick- Jay ho. BB and PRDP were both drama films with emotions both targeted to family audience. But this time both Salman films are completely different and targeted to completely different audience. One to families and other to youth and masses. Don’t you think that not just Salman should do this often but also other superstars should do more films of different genres? It will help industry in big way. Otherwise footfalls will continue to go down. A. There’s not much to add to what you have already said. Except that, variety is what the audience seek in today’s time. If an actor gets repetitive with his films, roles or even mannerisms.. he risks boring the audience and eventually losing them. Salman’s career is not just about pure stardom, but even though he’s generally perceived to be one of the less intelligent actors.. he’s been smarter than most other actors in the industry. He was quick to realise that the audience were losing interest in the typical South masala entertainers. So he began mixing it up. Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, Sultan, Tubelight, Tiger Zinda Hai and the dance film with Remo.. are all very different from each other. What’s most important for an actor to be successful is to know the pulse of the audience and not get carried away by the critics or what people say on social media. Q. How do you see Sushant and Ranveer’s future in Bollywood? Since 2000, only Hrithik, Ranbir and to some extent Varun have developed a great fan following and are in the superstar league. Do you see Ranveer and Sushant getting into that league? A. Superstar league is too big a word for Varun or even Ranbir. They simply haven’t had those record openers. Ranveer has potential, he’s found acceptance.. but all of the younger actors have a long way to go before we can even begin to call them superstars.

Q. How you see Dangal success in China market, how good can it be for Bollywood for there? Can Bahubali do miracle there after the disaster response of first part there? A. The success of Dangal is historic. It opens up a very big market for Aamir Khan films, which also means more money can go into production of his future films. The success of Dangal will create positivity for Hindi films in China, which is good news for the industry in general. The China collections so far has shocked the trade, but given the trend, the bigger surprise could well come in the next few weeks. Anything is possible because the highest grosser in China, The Mermaid, has collections of Rs 3150 crore. Even though Dangal may not even get close to those numbers, a future Aamir Khan film might. As for Bahubali 2 performing in China, the first film did not do well. So it’s unlikely the second will, it may not even be released there due to the lukewarm response that the first film got. Q. What will be the impact of Bahubali 2 on Half Girlfriend? A. It’s difficult to answer such questions. There are several factors in play here. One, the audience has already spent a lot of money on watching Bahubali 2 (hiked ticket prices), so if Half Girlfriend is a good film, it’ll get its audience. If it isn’t, the Bahubali 2 impact will seem bigger. Two, Bahubali 2 will create a screen-crunch of sorts, as it will still play on plenty of shows at multiplexes – and Half Girlfriend might not get the kind of shows and screens that it otherwise would with no holdover films performing. These are the two main concerns with Half Girlfriend releasing this week. But it’s a big film too, the music has done well, Chetan Bhagat is popular with the youth.. films based on his books have done well in the past, so the audience will come. We are expect a opening in the range of 10 crore for Half Girlfriend at the moment. Q. Please take one name ,who ruled the last decade i.e. 2000- 09; SRK , Hrithik or Aamir. A. SRK. We have an article on this (Click to Read). Aamir has a slightly better success and hit ratio than SRK, but SRK did more than double the films – his films almost always opened very well and he was nearly at the top of his game till 2008 – until Aamir started taking things to the next level Ghajini onwards. Q. Will a good and original content cinema, consisting of no big actors ever score big in bollywood ? Even classic Hollywood remakes in Bollywood (Like Memento – Ghajini) are highly modified (Masala added) to woo Indian audiences. A. We have discussed this concern in an article soon after the release of Bahubali 2 (Click to Read). The highest Hindi grosser without a male star is ‘Tanu Weds Manu Returns’ which collected 150 crore in India. So no film has outperformed on merit, most have needed star power. Content is clearly a problem in the industry and barring Aamir and Salman, no other actor is making films for the entire country. Top superstars are making niche films, which not only reduces their star power but tremendously reduces the potential of business. Q. Do you think Dangal will challenge worldwide collection of Bahubali 2 even after the phase 2 of Bahubali 2? A. It can challenge the worldwide collections of Bahubali 2 if China collections hold up well in Week 3. But it doesn’t matter. Both are Indian films and both are showing us the potential of film business globally. Q. Will dwarf film release on Christmas 2018 ? As there is no confirmation about leading actresses ? When shooting will start ? A. It’s confirmed for Christmas 2018, it’s a very big budget film so they probably would need a extra holiday or two. No confirmation on the leading lady yet, Deepika isn’t doing the film. Shoot is expected to start soon, they won’t be doing the outdoor shoot in Meerut, which was previously reported to be the shooting location. Q. Is Dangal performing in China because of Aamir Khan or because of its content? A. It’s probably a bit of both. No other Indian film, barring those featuring Aamir Khan, have done well in China. And his films are getting a big release and taking a good initial too – all before the word-of-mouth comes into play. Also, his newer films are outperforming his older releases, so it’s definitely his name that’s getting the audience to theatres – the extraordinary trend and collections in the second week is obviously because of the merits of the film itself. Q. As you’re against this idea of clash on August 11, who do you feel should move and avert the clash – SRK untitled or TEPK and why? A. Clashes between two big films should not happen and a two week gap between the big releases is ideal, otherwise they cut into each other’s business. Both Kaabil and Raees would’ve collected a lot more than they did with a solo release. Bahubali 2 has also shown us that a good film can collect 400 crore plus, irrespective of the weekend. Toilet Ek Prem Katha is a small film that may not be able to take advantage of the holiday weekend, SRK’s untitled film is bigger, more commercial and they were the first announce the date. Unfortunately, SRK is not in a position to even request, because Raees took on Kaabil after it was announced for Republic Day. When you take someone else’s date, you can’t complain when someone else takes yours. Toilet Ek Prem Katha has very little to lose in the clash, the pressure will be on the big-budget SRK film. It has to collect at a much higher level. Q. Is this month May-2017, the Golden era of Indian cinema? Will Bollywood ever witness this phase again? If so, when do u think? SS Rajamauli, Aamir Khan have made India proud. A. Anything can happen at the box office. When Dangal released and did almost 390 crore,  almost everyone in the trade confidently said no film will come close until Aamir’s next release. But the record has been shattered in less than 5 months. Robot 2.0 has been made on a bigger scale and has ‘star power’ too. It could do anything if director Shankar is in form. Some of his best films have been hugely entertaining and have tremendous repeat-value. He has the sense for scale too. Internally, we’ve been hearing that the scale and visual effects are mind-boggling. It’s going to be India’s biggest film. Q. Big Fan of your site must say excellent bunch of knowledgeable admin you guys are made up of keep it. My question I have been wanting to know is What is the All time highest Bumper opening of 90s(1990- end of 1999) decade and that of 2000s(2000-end of 2009). What are their adjusted collections in today’s era. Thank you. (Another question - Is Bahubali all languages included bigger than Hum Aapke Hai Kaun or Sholay? Please explain) A. Collections can only be adjusted for inflation, but that doesn’t give the true picture because factors cannot be put into numbers. In the 90s, the entertainment options were very limited. Internet access was low, so piracy didn’t exist. The release was different, films weren’t top-heavy and the biggest of blockbusters would run in theatres for years. So the ‘opening day’ or ‘opening weekend’ collections weren’t important like it is today. Also, in today’s times we have hundreds of television channels, Youtube and other video streaming websites, unique content on Netflix and a huge chunk of business is lost because of piracy. So adjusting inflation isn’t the right way to compare films of different eras. It isn’t right to compare a ‘Bahubali 2’ to some of the blockbusters from the 90s. It just does not make sense – which is why we don’t put inflation-adjusted numbers here. All that we said in one of our reports is, Bahubali 2 has pushed film business to a new level like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun did in the 90s). Q. Which film will sell more tickets worldwide(all versions included)-Baahubali or Dangal? A. Bahubali 2 will sell more tickets. It has already sold more than 2 times the tickets that Dangal sold. Telugu version itself will be watched by nearly 4 crore people. All-India footfalls will probably be close to 10 crore. Q. We see a lot of negativity around Salman Khan whenever his films release in social media.even then his films have bumper opening and are huge grossers?how?for example in the time of sultan he was heavily backlashed but sultan opening was bumper 37 crores? I mean how? A. Social media negativity or positivity does not matter at all. What matters is what the neutral social media users post after the release of the film. Only if they like and recommend the film, will it help increase ticket sales. Even critic reviews make zero difference for big films now. In fact, when critics like Raja Sen or Rajeev Masand go all out to praise a film.. even industry folks know the film is a sure-shot box office disaster. Q. Gold, mogul or Salman-Akshay-Kjo next? Which one is bigger? A. Akshay film with Salman and Karan Johar. Q. Half girlfriend or Mubarkan? Your pick? A. Half Girlfriend looks stronger on paper (bigger star cast, popular writer, good music etc). Mubarakan has a director who can deliver very entertaining films when in form. Tough to pick one out of the two, but we’d say Mubarakan. Q. Arjun or Siddharth? Who is more promising? A. Arjun’s film choices are much better. Q. Hi indicine i am your big fan of your web site especially the way you write your articles. So do you think Tubelight opening day will cross around 35 to 40 cores. A. Don’t expect such big numbers during Ramzan. We’ll have to wait for the trailer to start the FBO. A strong trailer should ensure 30 crore plus on Day 1. Q. Thanks Indicine! My favorite Bollywood site. Good job for keep on entertaining us with wonderful cinema scoop and brilliant articles. I didn’t participate in AskIndicine session quite some time coz give others equal opportunity. Just short & precise question: Is it justifiable to make comparison between Baahubali 2 and Dangal boxoffice collection. Give just answer to make happy and satisfy both Northeners and Southerners. A. This South vs North battle is extremely silly. Bahubali 2 wouldn’t be as big a success all-India, if Karan Johar hadn’t backed it. And it wouldn’t be such a big success without two extraordinary films from the Bahubali team either. End of the day, Bahubali 2 is an eye-opener for film industries all across the country. It has broken several myths and paved the way for bigger and better films  in the future. Same with Dangal. If Aamir can maintain his consistency in China, it will give him scope to increase the budget of his films. Q. As an Action movie lover want to know ,Are there standard rules when 2 main lead actors have a duel in a movie or its the actors that decides how many times he should be punched? Reason is some movies like a Dharam Veer , Krodh , Yudh Ishq Ajnabee in these movies one of the main lead dominance is quite there to observe take for example Ajnabee 2002 I guess Bobby deol beats and kills the other actor. Krodh Sunny Deol has no blood on his face while Sanjay Duty is bleeding. Now in contrast movies like Karan Arjun and Khakee both the lead actors have very equal duel.Even the Stunt director of Khakee said both the Akshay and ajay were made to have an equal fight like Salman and SRk in Karan Arjun. Why is it so? Confusing a times who decides and do the actors have a say how much they should be beaten? A bit long but glad if you answer. Thanks A. Most of what you see on screen is not real, it’s make believe. Also, it isn’t as complicated. The actor don’t decide how many times they want to punch or get punched. It depends on the script, the director and how the action director choreographs a scene. Q. Is Thugs of Hindostan a big budget movie.what are the expectations from the move.Seeing Aamir popularity in china if Lagaan ,TZP released now will they gross huge as seen with Dangal that great content with high on emotional is a huge success. Please reply as this is third time I m asking any question. A. The projected budget of Thugs of Hindostan is said to be 200 crore. Nothing official from Yash Raj Films. Lagaan would definitely be a bigger success at the domestic box office if it released today, the audience trust in Aamir Khan is too strong. A ‘Gadar’ would probably not even work today. Q. Amitabh Bachchan was number one from Kashmir to Kanyakumari in his prime days. Do we have another such all area no:1 star before or after him ? Your views .. I’m sure today it is not undisputed .. Salman in Rajasthan , Akshay in Panjab , SRK in Mumbai , Hrithik in South.. all have their own forts. A. In correct. Salman and Aamir are the top stars across all circuits in the country. Even SRK’s strong hold of West Bengal, Aamir’s last three films have collected a lot more than SRK starrers. Akshay doesn’t even make it to Top 10 grossers in Punjab. The only actors who can compete with Aamir and Salman today are the regional superstars – who are obviously way ahead in their home and surrounding states. Q. What is that Aamir khan have who does extraordinary collection, which is almost unbelievable.. does he keep in mind the collection while he is reading the script? A. He knows the pulse of the audience, but apart from that it’s the sheer trust of the audience, his hard work and script sense. A ‘Dangal’ can’t be a planned blockbuster. It had almost nothing in it except Aamir’s presence and brilliance. And of course the script and extraordinary direction. But his conviction is what makes his films such huge blockbusters. Q. Dangal is running for a month in Taiwan that too without any drop in the collection, dangal is showing the same or even better trend is showing in china. So how much it can earn in china? A. It’s certain to earn more than $100 million (650 crore approx) as Dangal has already touched $60 million in China.. The trend isn’t normal, it’s extraordinary.. so it could pretty much do anything. Q. Why is there so much difference from Friday to Saturday to Sunday collections in China? Collections of Saturday are 4 fold compared to Friday and then again dropped massively on Sunday. In India usually there is only 10-30% difference in collections over each day of the weekend with business peaking on Sunday in contrary to business peaking on Saturday in China. A. In most countries, Saturday business tends to be the best – as offices and schools are closed on Saturday and Sunday is a holiday. Q. How much Half Girlfriend has a chances of getting into a 100 Cr at box office Considering a Bahubali 2 Is still dominating Indian box office. A. We cannot predict until we watch the film. The makers are confident of the content and are looking at the film performing well even after Week 1. Q. Which is the best Hindi film of 2017 till now – Kaabil, Raees, Jolly LLB 2, Badrinath Ki Dulhania, Phillauri, Naam Shabana and Begum Jaan ? A. Out of the films you mentioned, Badrinath Ki Dulhania worked the best. We do not want to pick films in QnA – when the reviewer of the site has already posted reviews. Q. Why Tubelight teaser has lesser view count on youtube compared to other trailers? A. Teasers always get fewer views, could be because more people search for trailer and not the teaser. Q. Please answer this! What do you think about Katrina’s lineup? JJ, TZH, ALR and possibly the film with Akshay-Dharma? Do you think she can get back to a top position, at least BO wise? A. Solid line-up. Just when her career looked like it was going downhill, she has signed big films. It’s these films that sustain popularity of actresses and these roles work for Katrina too. She shouldn’t be doing films like Fitoor or Baar Baar Dekho. People like her in glamorous roles and not films that test her acting talent. Q. What is the potential of Srk-Anand rai film when every thing goes on track like no clash + Christmas release + Good release i.e no protest+pre release buzz like CE, Ra.one+well received music and at the last movie turned out being best for SRK. With unique content.Please answer I am desperate to know my favourite star potential when every thing goes positive? A. Factors or release factors don’t need to fall in place, what SRK needs at the moment is a less-hyped good entertaining film. Usually, there’s too much noise pre-release but content isn’t living upto audience expectations. A film like Chak De India had very little pre-release hype, but clicked big time. We do not have high box office hopes from the Imtiaz Ali film because of the director himself – it can obviously surprise and outperform if Imtiaz has made a universal film.. but the Aanand L Rai film has the potential to be absolutely huge. Q. Is Aamir biggest star of Bollywood in overseas right now? A. His film has now collected nearly 3-4 times more than the best of any other actor. Without doubt he is the biggest currently. Q. You don’t answer my questions, still i have a question for you. Has Ritiesh Deshmukh’s Shivaji got shelved? And is Salman also a part of it ? A. Salman isn’t a part of the film, although Ritesh has said before that there’s a cameo of Salman. Ritesh himself would be playing the role of Chhatrapati Shivaji. The film hasn’t been officially announced. Q. Plz answer indicine what is current status of Tubelight? As a Salman fan, I’m bit concerned about low excitement around movie. I hope Kabir doesn’t overdo the Bajrangi theme as it was unique film that connect well. Considering little cold response and post Bahubali era, you think TZH is more likely to score than Tubelight. A. Tiger Zinda Hai will be a much bigger film – scale and box office wise. Tubelight is ‘content-driven’ with Salman’s presence ensuring a big initial. Expectations of a good film will be very high though, given Kabir-Salman track record and there’s the pressure of box office too after Bahubali 2. Q. If i say the record created by Bahubali in Bollywood is a shame for the Bollywood directors and the top stars, do you agree with me? Can you give the collection of Bahubali in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam? Who are the people watching Dangal in China, Is it Indians or the Chinese? A. Certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Bahubali 2 is one-off case and it was backed by Karan Johar. It’s not like South films will suddenly start to work all over the country, but we have a lot to learn from the success of Bahubali 2. Hopefully we start to make better films, more universal and giving the audience value for the high ticket price that majority are unwilling to pay for most films at the moment. Q. Dear Indicine team firstly congratulations to you for such a huge fanbase for this website. My question is dose Bahbubali collections have raised the bar for bollywood? Will there be a more pressure on the khans now? Do u think any khan movie vl break records set by Bahubali? A. Thank you. There will certainly be pressure on the Khans, because records have now become breaking news. It creates positivity for big films post release, even mainstream media has started covering box office collections. Like we’ve said, box office is extremely unpredictable. A Salman Khan film can collect 400 crore in India, he has the audience and the craze surrounding him. If that’s backed with a solid film like Bajrangi Bhaijaan, anything is possible. We have to end the QnA. Thank you for joining us today. Apologies to those whose questions weren’t answered.

Live QnA will be held at 7PM today: We won’t be opening the comments section for questions this week, because some of last week’s questions are pending. We have also received a few questions from Twitter and via Email, those questions will be answered today. Do join us at 7PM. Q. When is the teaser of Tubelight releasing? A. On Wednesday (26 April). It will also be attached to the prints of ‘Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’. Q. First Secret Superstar and Now Bhoomi postpone from 4 August.. Now what is the scenario SRK’s Next and TEPK? Can any one film be preponed week before on 4 Aug to get one week free run? If clash happened what will be the opening and lifetime collection of both movie? If TEPK release on 4aug n SRK’s Next release on 11 Aug, What’ll b opening and Lifetime collection? Love IndiCine A. It’s impossible to predict lifetime collections of any film without knowing how the audience will react to it. More so when two films are scheduled to clash at the box office. The better film (i.e the one that carries better word-of-mouth) will get the advantage. As for one film moving to get a solo release, it simply does not make business sense. Both films want the extended 5-day weekend for Independence Day. If the makers of ‘Toilet Ek Prem Katha’ wanted a solo release, they could’ve stuck to the older date (June 2) or the 1st / 2nd week of July which was vacant back then. Opening-wise, the SRK film will take the bigger star – due to costs and other factors, the opening of the untitled SRK film has to be as good as Raees and the trend after the weekend has to be better. Q. You always said that any clash featuring two superstars should be averted. In the case of Raees and Kaabil you had said same even after release of the films. So why you are saying that it is a good decision to release toilet with srk anushka movie, just because there is 1extra holiday or because it is Akshay’s movie? A. Clashes between two big films featuring established stars is never ideal, because at the end of the day if the audience doesn’t watch both films, the industry is losing out on business. But when someone like a Salman Khan takes both Eid and Christmas, there’s very little left for the other stars. Diwali already had a big film (Robot 2.0) which was replaced by another biggie (Golmaal Again). For the rest of the stars, we have Republic Day, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanti. In the article ‘Our Take on the Box Office Clash‘ we had clearly mentioned all the reasons. The decision to avert such clashes has to be mutual, more so when another big film has already taken a particular date. But when SRK decides to release Raees against Kaabil or Diwale against Bajirao Mastani, he isn’t in a position to protest or complain when the makers of ‘Toilet:EPK’ decide to take his film on. Theirs (Toilet:EPK) was a well-planned business move. They’ll get GST benefits and they’ll also be in a position to cash-in on the Swacch Bharat angle during Independence Day. There’s no clarity on ‘Tax Exemption’ after GST, but if there is a provision, then ‘Toilet:EPK’ could benefit from that too. Q. After giving six back to back flops should we consider that after Noor Sonakshi’s career is finished? A. The typical ‘South Masala’ films aren’t working anymore. It was a genre that suited Sonakshi perfectly. Now the move to do female-centric films is to sustain and prolong her career, but the audience will only be interested if the film is brilliant and is worth the price of the ticket. Whether we like it or not, the Indian audience (for now atleast) will never come out in big numbers to watch solo films featuring female stars. A Kangana Ranaut worked in Tanu Weds Manu and Queen, because the films were good. The audience did not come to watch her, but to watch a good film. Her performance can only add value to a good film – it should not be confused with star power.  Even a Deepika Padukone or Anushka Sharma, who happen to be the top stars in the industry, cannot be compared to a young star like Varun Dhawan in terms of star power. Q. If Kaabil released solo on republic day, what would be its lifetime collection? A. Probably around 40-50%. It was severely affected by lesser number of shows and screens in the first week. Even Raees lost around 15%. Q. Dutt or Padmavati? Your pick? A. Dutt. Q. Will Sunny Deol’s Bhaiyaji Superhit get 500 screens on Eid.? A. It’s not about getting screens, but about the audience coming to watch the film in theatres. Punjab aside, the much-delayed Bhaiyyaji Superhit will be a washout. It looks like the makers want to cash-in on the clash publicity, but it won’t make any difference whatsoever to Tubelight. Q. Why are indian critics so biased? They gave poor ratings to shivaay but good ratings to fast and furious7? Both belonging to same genre? Why are we so obsessed with Hollywood films? I mean they should have understood that the budget of both movies are different? Even then they compare films? Why dont they support someone trying something new? A. Some of our critics have always been obsessed with Hollywood. But the other question that we have to be asking is.. why do so many of our producers give so much importance to some of pseudo-intellectual critics. Ajay organised a special media screening a couple of days before the release of Shivaay. It’s surprising that a industry veteran like him, does not understand that the critics are certain to thrash a movie like Shivaay. It ended up hurting the film to a certain extent, especially at multiplexes. Negative reviews were out a day before release. On the other hand, Fox did not organise a screening for ADHM. Q. What is the status of No Entry Mein Entry, Welcome 3, Hera Pheri 3 and Aankhen 2? Please reply A. All on hold currently. Q. After Salman who has 2nd biggest stardom, fan following and hysteria today and guarantee those numbers in right film plus good date? A. In India, after Salman it’s SRK. It’s just that some of his recent films neither have Pan-India appeal.. nor have they been good enough entertainers. He has to win back the trust of the section of audience that aren’t his fans. The neutral moviegoer isn’t coming to watch his films, not because they do not like him.. but because he isn’t giving them anything new. There’s also this belief on the ground that his films are all hype without any substance. The same old raising the arm etc might excite his fans, but does not excite the general audience anymore. What they want is a good entertaining film, which has a story to tell. Human emotions, films that are shot in India and those that have a relatable storyline.. a social issue, nationalism or patriotism.. is what’s working. The guys who are doing well at the moment – Aamir, Salman, Akshay – have all been experimenting and they know the pulse of the audience too. SRK has tremendous potential, if only his choices were better. Q. No questions today indicine. Just wanna thank you for the good work and suggest if you can conduct q and a session twice a week. Or if you can answer the questions briefly so instead of answering 40 questions you can answer 60+… will keep the visitors happy…. please consider this A. Thank you. Twice a week will get boring. There has to be news development, release date changes or some big film releases too – else people won’t have questions to ask. Thanks again for your interest. Q. Can hindi version of Bahubali 2 open bigger than Tubelight? Coz Tubelight is a less commercial film(it’s not a Sultan or Tiger Zinda Hai) and releases during Ramzan period just like Bajrangi Bhaijaan, whereas in case of Bahubali even 30 cr looks possible! A. Definitely a possibility. All-India, Bahubali 2 will take a bigger opening. But Hindi version will be touch and go because Tubelight is releasing two / three days before Eid. Everyone wants to watch Bahubali 2, the film will surprise as far as the opening of the Hindi version is concerned. Q. Hi indicine. Why don’t you rate the word of mouth of a movie out of 10? Based on audience response? It will give a better idea whether to watch or skip A. Thank you for the suggestion, we’ll see what we can do. It’s difficult to gauge the word-of-mouth as soon as a film is released. India is such a vast and varied country that a good word-of-mouth film in metro cities is rubbish for audience at mass centres. Q. When is Munna Bhai 3 likely to release? Can it release in the second half of 2018 or we have to wait till 2019? A. 2019. Q. If the word-of-mouth of Bahubali 2 is as good as the 1st part can it cross 250 cr in Hindi alone , and will that force the producers to avoid clash and release films solo on normal weekends? A. Bahubali 2 can do anything. It could open above the 30 crore mark and if the film turns out to be outstanding or as good as the first, then even 300 crore is a possibility for the Hindi version. If a film like The Jungle Book can earn nearly 200, this is much bigger and there’s no major release for 3 weeks until Half Girlfriend. Q. What’s your response Half Girlfriend so far? Will it be successful in garnering enough buzz to become a big film(in terms of initial) because the trailer looks pretty average with nothing new to offer. A. It has the elements of a Pan-India film. If the content is good, it’ll do well in the long run. After Badrinath Ki Dulhania there hasn’t been a good Hindi film. And there’s nothing in between either – except Bahubali 2 which isn’t a Hindi film. The film has quite a few factors in its favour – it’s the only big film that’s releasing just before Ramzan so the muslim section of the audience will come to theatres. Plus, it’s the post-IPL period. The trailer and songs have got a good response too. Q. I am a huge fan of your site. Please i hope you answer me this time. Why srk’s 1999 film baadshah didn’t do too well? It was one of the best comedy thrillers of 1990s and srk was at the peak of his stardom back then. in fact I enjoyed it more than his huge hits like darr and baazigar. Please solve this mystery. Thank you. A. There are no answers to such questions. A lot depends on the timing of release, what’s working at that time. Even a film like Andaz Apna Apna did not work at all. Comedies were working mid-2000s, then there was a dull period. Sequels were working not too long ago, now they are getting rejected. The taste of audience keeps changing. Baadshah still manages decent TRPs on television. Q. Among youngsters which actor(male and female) is having biggest fanbase? A. Male: Salman Khan. Female: Anushka Sharma / Deepika Padukone. Q. Aamir in PK, Shahrukh in Fan, Salman in Bajrangi Bhaijan. Who acted best according to you? A. We’ll do a quick poll and let the readers decide Q. What is response to Sachin:a billion dreams trailer? A. Good. It’ll get a decent / good opening because of Sachin.

It so happens that we schedule a QnA at a certain time (4PM today) and all visitors visit at around the same time, something which our servers cannot handle. We need to look for a solution, but for now we apologise for the delay. Q. What according to you is the biggest reason behind Aamir not winning many awards even after being a top superstar and great actor? A. For top stars, Indian awards are not about winning them, but the actors wanting them.Akshay Kumar recently said, an awards show called him up to say they’ll give him the award as long as he charges half the fee for his award-performance. In response, Akshay said keep the award and give me my full performance-fee. It’s not just Aamir, even a great actor like Ajay Devgn hasn’t won a single Filmfare Award. And we are talking about a two-time National award winner here. Q. Your views on Aamir’s consistency on major box office records. Aamir is the only actor to give an ATBB, 2 HGOTY and have a movie in top 3 highest grosser biggest hit and most watched film of the decade for 3 consecutive decades (1990-2010). A. Aamir Khan is not just a name now, he’s a brand. Like the ‘ISI Mark’ is the most recognised and trusted certification, Aamir name assures quality, so even if it’s a small film like Secret Superstar – Aamir producing or acting in a film not only adds tremendous credibility, but it also generates widespread interest. There are many people in the country who only watch Aamir Khan films in theatres. Box office aside, this trust in the audience is probably the most thing to achieve in the industry. Q. Does the clash between Tubelight and Sunny Deol starrer will affect Tubelight collection… especially in north? A. It’s not going to make any difference. Sunny Deol is no longer a bankable star. Q. Are these movies releasing in 2017 (Padman, Dutt biopic, Golmaal 4 and Ittefaq). A. There’s a release date crunch this year, especially for big films. Dutt biopic is releasing this year, Golmaal Again might take the first week of November. Ittefaq is a small film – it’ll release this year too. Q. What are your views on the new tactic by producers to clash with bigger films to get publicity because it will limit the amount of records movies make right? A. The film industry is a business. No one decides on a ‘clash’ just because they do not want the other (bigger) film to not break records. While ego can play a role, most of these are purely business decisions. Shah Rukh wanted the Christmas weekend so that families could come and watch the film. He felt it was the best date and hence they decided to stick to it. Raees makers decided to move even though it was a perfect Eid film, because it did not make business sense to release it against Sultan and the established might of Salman during Eid. The makers of Toilet too planned, strategised and only then announced the date. The decision could prove to be beneficial to them, but it’s certainly not to hurt the other film or stop their film from becoming a big grosser. Q. Why do Salman khan films open to earth shattering response? Is it his stardom or effect of trailer, songs etc? A. We think a Salman Khan film does not require promotion – atleast not the usual city tours and TV appearances. Release the trailer, announce the Eid date.. people will come. Q. Can you give circuit wise maximum capacity of a circuit on 1 day? A. It depends on a lot of factors like ticket prices, release size etc. For a Salman Khan release, at full capacity we could probably get to 60-65 crore net on a single day – if all shows are house full. Baahubali 2 will certainly challenge this because it’ll perform across all markets – Hindi and single-screen dominated Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada markets too. The release size is going to be much bigger than the biggest of Hindi releases too, so the upper limit is a lot higher. Q. Don’t you think Gandhi Jayanti could be a better release date for SRK-Imtiaz starrer or Secret Superstar as Judwa 2 is getting a solo release. A. Judwaa 2 is a big film. It could have a bigger impact on SRK-Imtiaz film than a less commercial film like Toilet Ek Prem Katha. Plus that week may not give the best opportunity for 2 films to do well – because Pre-Diwali will begin to come into effect from the second week of October and footfalls in theatres will reduce. Q. On paper which year looks bigger for Akshay Kumar 2017 or 2018? A. 2017, because of Robot 2.0. Q. How’s the response to the trailer of Half Girlfriend? A. Fairly positive. From the trade and within the industry, the response was mixed. But the normal audience seems to be liking it. We haven’t been able to do our trailer survey because the trailer of Half Girlfriend will be attached to the print of Baahubali 2, so we’ll publish a more accurate ‘response’ article after April 28. Meanwhile, it will allow the music to grow on the audience. Baarish has received a good response and the next song which will be out tomorrow, is the best song in the album. Q. Tollywood are making big budget films with young star like Prabhas who was not very popular before Baahubali and exploring new genres? Why isn’t this happening with Bollywood? Even big director like Karan Johar is repeating same rom coms again and again? A. Hindi film industry has done it too – the money invested on Ram Leela and Bajirao Mastani was huge for a star like Ranveer Singh when he signed those films. Established stars bring a certain amount of safety – because a unknown star even in a medium budget commercial film like ‘Machine’ with successful directors, can be a big risk. Genre experimentation is also not as easy as it sounds. Rangoon with several credible actors was a major-major disaster. Business should now be about giving the films the best possible chance to recover the investment. Q. Will Sanjay Dutt starrer Bhumi release on 4th August, will it affect SRK film or Toilet Ek Prem Katha? A. It’s still scheduled to release on 4th August. They haven’t announced a different date, except that Dutt was quoted as saying he wouldn’t want to clash with Secret Superstar.  It’s unlikely to have any impact on the SRK film or Toilet EKP. We are still facing technical issues due to high traffic. We’ll continue the QnA once the technical issues are fixed. Apologies.

Q. What’s the impact of clash between Akshay and Shahrukh business wise. Will it be a healthy clash for both stars? A. No clash can be healthy, because at the end of the day it’s business and corporates are involved. The stars may not get involved and it won’t be a ADHM vs Shivaay like scenario, but a lot of money will be at stake – especially for a big-budget film like SRK-Imtiaz’s next which has already been sold for a high price. Recovery was pretty much guaranteed with a solo release and a extended long weekend, but now with a clash the risk is higher and there will be uncertainty. Since ‘Toilet Ek Prem Katha’ is a medium-budget film, recovery will not be difficult. If it gets tax free status in a couple of major states, then recovery becomes even more easier. Purely from a business point of view, it’s a good decision from the makers of ‘Toilet:EPK’. But so many major clashes, isn’t good for the industry. We are cutting into each others business. Q. What is the Imran Khan’s upcoming movies ? Any idea about him where is he? A. He hasn’t signed any film. There are reports that he may turn director, but nothing official just yet. Q. It is true, in 2.0 Akshay Kumar has 12 different looks and Rajnikanth also 5 different looks ? A. The director of the film has denied those reports. It’s not true. Q. What is your expectations about Half Girlfriend ? A. Expectations are high for several reasons; one, apart from ‘Baahubali 2’ there’s no major Hindi film between Badrinath Ki Dulhania and Half Girlfriend. The names associated with Half Girlfriend are big too. Chetan Bhagat and his novels are popular with the youth and it’s the ‘2 States’ brand which helped the film open. Mohit Suri has a following too and the star cast is good. Music album is fantastic, which does help love films. So yes, it’ll be a disappointment if it falls below 70 crore lifetime. Q. With the additional benefit of GST, can Rehnuma open close to 25 crore and TEPK close to 15 crore making a combined total of 40 cr on day 1? A. Too early to talk about this without watching the trailer of both films. Also, there’s no clarity on GST yet. We don’t even know which slab entertainment tax will come under. So once that’s clear the whole scenario could change. We could begin reporting numbers in ‘gross’ like other countries do – and not ‘net’. This will make comparison with older films a little difficult because the real-value has to be taken. More on this as soon as the government releases more info. Q. TEPK might create a lot of buzz due to the clash and the promotion strategies also look good. So can it get tax-free status before release. A. It’s a content driven film and it wasn’t expected to crazy any real buzz before release. But with the clash against a big film like ‘The Ring’ (working title), it’s certain to get plenty of publicity. Last Independence Day had a similar clash, between a big-budget film like Mohenjo Daro and Rustom which had lesser money riding on it. Mohenjo Daro had a very poor trailer and the music didn’t work either. The untitled SRK film is expected to be different – with good music and colourful promos. The trailer of both films will be important, especially for the SRK-Imtiaz film. Q. Best Female directors according to you? A. Farah Khan is by far the most successful. Then there is Zoya Akhtar and Gauri Shinde. Best is debatable, because only Farah Khan films have found universal acceptance. Zoya and Gauri is more high-end multiplex audience and critics. Q. Any idea which film is targeting Republic Day 2018? Golmaal 4, Padmavati (if postponed), Padman Dutt Biopic or is Hrithik Roshan going to announce a new film on that day? Which film would you @indicine release on that day if you had the power to decide? A. Of the films that you mentioned, Padmavati is the biggest but it needs a big festival release because the costs are very high. Golmaal Again is big too, with lower costs. January is actually a good month for film business, it would be interesting to see if a film can cross 200 in January. Kaabil and Raees combined crossed 200. We’d pick Golmaal Again. It could be a risk to release Padmavati just a month after Tiger Zinda Hai. Q. Secret superstar 4aug and then 2 big movies on 11aug… Do you really think, Indian producers are too emotional towards big weekends.. I mean if secret super star finds appreciation and retains 300-400multiplex screen in second weekend…Then it’s going to effect a lot on 11aug release. A. We think Aamir will push Secret Superstar to a different date. He is one of the best minds in film business and he’ll probably know it’s a small word-of-mouth film. It needs two open weeks to grow and perform at the box office. If it comes a week before the two major films, it may not find too many takers in Week 2 unless it turns out to be an exceptional film. Even assuming it’s an outstanding film, it’ll still lose out on business. Q. Why do Rajinikanth films fail to do well in North? Baahubali was nothing in North before it’s release, whereas North people despite being aware of Kabali showed up in less numbers compared to the former. Even Robot despite having Aishwarya Rai and getting a solo release on Gandhi Jayanti weekend failed to do well unlike Bahubali that crossed 100 cr despite a film like Bajrangi Bhaijaan releasing in the second week. Both Prabhas and Rana combined together aren’t as popular as Rajini in North. Then why did this happen? Also talk about Robot 2 here. A. It’s like asking why a Bollywood film featuring a Hindi superstar does not perform as well as Hollywood film in their markets. Rajnikanth’s audience is completely different. The other way to look at it is, how much do Salman-Aamir films collect in Tamilnadu as compared to Rajnikanth films in the state? There’s a big difference. Baahubali was different. Karan Johar lent his name to it, they ensured the film is well-dubbed and promoted it very well too. Exceptional content and the fact that it was a incredible big-screen experience, meant that the film grew on word-of-mouth. Put Prabhas and Rana combined in any other film except Baahubali and their film wouldn’t work in the core Hindi markets either. Robot 2 has Akshay Kumar, a well-established Hindi superstar. It’s a good combination. Rajni will ensure outstanding collections in the South markets, Akshay’s presence will ensure audience come out in the north and other parts of India. Plus there’s Shankar’s who is known to make universal films. Q. Does SRK need to win the clash on Independence Day to save the Dwarf film from clash? A. Certainly. It’s a big weekend and the Aanand L Rai film will be made on a very big budget. So it needs a solo release. To get a solo release, his film with Imtiaz Ali needs to work big. Q. Is Sons of Sardaar still on cards? A. Unlikely. There’s another big film coming which is based on the Battle of Saragarhi. Q. Can SRK-Imtiaz next move to Diwale because Diwali can afford two big movies where one is regional movie? A. May not be the best of ideas. Toilet isn’t a commercial entertainer, while Robot 2.0 is a far bigger film also featuring Akshay Kumar. Plus the Rajnikanth factor will seriously affect film business in Tamilnadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It’s better to stick to Independence Day. Diwali advantage is there for a couple of days, but Independence Day weekend this year has plenty of holidays. Q. How dis Telugu films like Khaidi No. 150, Sardaar Gabbar Singh and Katamarayudu manage to gross more than 40/30 cr on Day 1? Even the ticket prices in North states like Mumbai, Delhi higher than those in Andhra and Telangana. Then how they achieve this feat? A. That’s because the entertainment tax for regional films is very less or they are completely tax free.  Plus, actors like Chiranjeevi and Pawan Kaylan are major – Rajnikanth-like superstars – in their home states. So they bring in bigger audience. Q. How much Naam Shabanaa needs to collect to emerge a semi hit atleast?? Asking a question after a long time :) A. 35-40 crore for break even. Q. Why do you call Salman Khan a megastar even though his only non-holiday release Jai Ho opened to only 18 crores? A. Jai Ho had a massive first weekend at the box office. High ticket sales, cheap ticket prices, 26 crore on Sunday. All this for almost a B-grade looking film, with hardly anything in it except Salman’s presence. Plus, he has 8 blockbusters or better out of his last 10 films. All of them 100 crore grossers. Four consecutive 200 crore plus films. 800 crore plus domestic business over a period of 1 year (Bajrangi Bhaijaan to Sultan). Bumper opening for almost all films. This sort of a run has never been seen before. We aren’t even talking about television or his growing fan base overseas. Megastar is actually an understatement. Q. Varun Dhawan has not seen any failure yet. 8 successful movies in a row. Is there any other actor has seen anything like Varun in his early stage of his career. A. We can’t think of any other actor who had a run as successful as this – right from the beginning of a career. Q. When will a film take better advantage of a holiday, when the holiday falls on Friday, Saturday or Monday? Arrange them. A. It depends on the content. For a film that finds acceptance, Monday holiday would be good. For average entertainers with big buzz, Friday / Opening day holiday is the best. Q. Why industry in not learning from the negative impact of Big star’s movie clashes? A. Now, the problem here is, the entire industry has to unite to avoid such clashes. Because somewhere the industry and its investors are losing money on such clashes. But who is to be blamed here? Kaabil was announced for Republic Day, Raees decided to come on the same date. Now, when the Imtiaz film is announced for Independence Day weekend, Toilet Ek Prem Katha has taken the same date. Now, SRK isn’t really in a position to ask the other banner to avoid the clash just because he announced his film first. Chennai Express had taken Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai’s date. Dilwale took Bajirao Mastani’s date. Son Of Sardaar took Jab Tak Hai Jaan’s date and Ajay was at the receiving end when ADHM took on his ambitious Shivaay. In short, everyone is looking at his own interests, which is fair enough when it comes to business. Unless the industry unites and acts more a family, such clashes will be inevitable because there are very few big dates or holidays and everyone wants them. Q. Can Judwaa 2 cross 150 crore?? And what will be the ideal date for Varun’s next with Shoojit Sircar a movie which is a heart-breaking love story? A. Judwaa 2 definitely has a chance to do 150 crore plus if it’s a good entertaining film. If David Dhawan is anywhere close to his 90s best, the film will be unstoppable. Not much is known about the Shoojit Sircar film with Varun Dhawan. Q. Is there any chance to win the clash by Akshay Kumar? A. Winning will be difficult, but it doesn’t even need to beat the SRK-Imtiaz film. Nothing can be said with certainty when it comes to any films performance at the box office. Anything can happen, but Toilet is a much smaller film. [advert] Q. Why hasn’t Hollywood made a movie on the Mahabharata? A. How can we answer this? Back home, Aamir Khan is planning. Q. Do you think Padmavathi will release in this year itself considering the delays? A. After our QnA last week where we said the film might get postponed and Dutt biopic might release on that date, the makers have released a clarification that Padmavati will release as previously planned. The schedule is messed up though and it’ll be a battle against time to complete Padmavati and release it in November. More on this soon. It’s nearly 3 hours since we started the QnA and although we couldn’t answer as many questions as we wanted to today, We’ll have to end the QnA today. Thank you for joining us. The rest of the questions that have already been posted, will be answered soon.

Q. Can Bahubaali : The conclusion open with 30+ ( Hindi Belt ) as buzz is never seen before and there are not any big films coming ? A. We are currently looking at a 20 crore plus opening for the Hindi version of ‘Baahubali: The Conclusion’. 30 crore is going to be difficult because the film is not releasing on a holiday, but certainly achievable. A lot of people would want to watch it before the suspense (Why Katappa killed Baahubali?) is revealed. IndicineFBO currently has Day 1 at 24 crore for the Hindi version only. Q. I am again asking please answer. While looking at box office collections why is only east Punjab considered and not whole? A. East Punjab is just the name of the circuit. It actually covers Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir. Q. What do you think which Akshay Kumar movie has a chance to collect 150 crore? Will it be Mogul? A. From his line-up of officially announced films, Robot 2.0 is by far the biggest and has the best release period too. We’d put our money on 2.0, as long as it gets a solo release. Toilet and Padman are content dependent even to get to 100 crore, both won’t get a big initial. His next big film is the Salman-Karan Johar venture, followed by Mogul. Q. Title of SRK-ANUSHKA starrer Imtiaz Ali movie? A. It doesn’t have a title yet. ‘The Ring’ and ‘Rehnuma’ both aren’t final titles. Q. The hype behind the Bahubali trailer is high but trailer becomes average and makers don’t reveal the plot of movie. Is this helpful for creating buzz for the movie… Last time Bahubali was the underdog but this time it’s like a brand. A. The trailer is not going to make any difference to a film like Baahubali. Majority of the audience who watched the first film, loved it and are going to watch the second film in theatres. The only factor that could hurt the business of the film is the content. Due to the high standards set by the first film, expectations will be very high from the second film, which also increases the chances of disappointing the audience. Q. What’s the current status of next Dhoom movie? Is it going to be made in this decade? Will YRF go for Tiger 3? Are they turning Tiger into a franchise? If yes how Big it can turn out? A. We have been hearing that YRF wants to have a gap of 5-6 years between two Dhoom film, so as to not overdo the franchise. Except the next film in 2019 – 2020. As for the third film in the Tiger franchise, it’s too early to talk about it. It depends on what sort of response the second film gets. Q. Your views on the nepotism debate that is going on in Bollywood? Some even dare to say Aamir and Salman are product of nepotism! A. Shah Rukh Khan, one of the greatest actors of our era, ruled the industry even through he was a complete outsider. YRF and Dharma backed him and in turn he gave them some of their biggest blockbusters. Deepika and Anushka Sharma, the top 2 female stars in the industry today, do not come from a filmy background. The most prolific star, Akshay Kumar, made it on his own too. There’s Amitabh Bachchan and several others too. So it’s not about the industry not giving chances to outsiders, they have, but it’s just that very few have succeeded. As for the debate around Aamir and Salman being products of nepotism – it wouldn’t have taken them far without talent and potential. Abhishek Bachchan got many chances, but the audience never accepted him. Uday Chopra could never make it big even though he got a platform like Mohabbatein to showcase his potential. Many star kids have failed, many outsiders have flourished. Being a star kid can only give you those first few opportunities, after that they are on their own. Q. You always said that the clash between Tiger Zinda Hai and Dutt will be avoided but never revealed that which movie will backout. Can you please tell us which movie will move? A. We have been hearing that Padmavati will get postponed and Dutt biopic will take that date (November end). Unless there’s some unexpected delay, Tiger Zinda Hai is getting a solo release during Christmas. Even Sanjay Dutt recently said, he wants to avoid clashes. It doesn’t make business sense  and taking on Salman in the form that he is in at the moment, is borderline suicidal. Even if Dutt biopic has outstanding content, it will still hurt the film at B and C centres. Q. Single screen or multiplex which audience base is bigger & more profitable? as a newcomer which fanbase u should target first? A. There’s not comparison at the moment. For most films contribution from multiplexes is 90% or more. Only Badrinath Ki Dulhania and Raees have worked well at single-screen this year, but even for those films the contribution from multiplexes is more than 75-80%. Q. What are your expectations from Half Girlfriend? Can it surpass 2 states? A. The trailer of Half Girlfriend is good. It has a couple of good songs too, one song that could even attain ’Galliyan’ levels of popularity. The expectations are obviously high – Chetan Bhagat commands a following, Mohit Suri has his audience and Arjun is returning after Ki & Ka. Shraddha is popular at smaller centres too. So it ticks most boxes and it’s a bigger film than Badrinath Ki Dulhania too. Whether it beats 2 States lifetime or not, would obviously depend on content – but opening-wise it should, especially if music really gains popularity. The music album isn’t the ‘Kala Chashma’ or ‘Humma’ sort, it has a lot of feel to it and the audience would want to experience it in theatre. Q. Who is the biggest music director of this generation? A. Should be Pritam. A.R Rahman is probably past his prime now, his last few albums haven’t really clicked. Q. Please describe how Varun Dhawan delivered 8 successful movies. As far as I know there was no other actor with first 8 films all being successful. A. It’s again a combination of many things. One, he knows the trade well and the potential of his scripts in terms of collections it can achieve – both lower and upper levels. When an actor understands this and ensures that his films have the right budgets, half the battle is already won. For example, he charged less for Badlapur, got the economics of the film right which helped him get a clean-boxoffice-hit at around the 50 crore mark itself. With a budget of 35 crore or so, that film would’ve failed. Two, he knows his audience and wants to grow his fanbase by doing universally appealing films. He rejected Ok Jaanu knowing the scale of the film is small and the reach is limited. He also probably knows that he has a fan-following among kids (below 12) – who would be alienated with a film like Ok Jaanu, but come out in big numbers for Badrinath Ki Dulhania and Judwaa 2. Choice of films, correct budget, charisma and the whole-hearted effort that he puts into every film, including the promotional campaign – has made him the most bankable young star in the industry. Q. Can any other newcomer break the unthinkable record which Varun Dhawan has set of 8 successful movies? A. Difficult now. All of those who have already debuted, have failures against their names. Ranveer has Befikre, Arjun has Tevar, Tiger has A Flying Jatt, Sushant has Detective Byomkesh Bakshi, Sidharth has Baar Baar Dekho. Q. What will be the impact of Badrinath Ki Dulhania success on Judwaa 2. ABCD 2 after Badlapur and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani after Barfi opened to astonishing numbers. A. Judwaa 2 is going to be huge. 20 crore plus on opening day should be achievable. Q. Can Siddharth Malhotra gain good box office numbers with Reload? A. He can, but it’s an expensive film considering the star cast. Q. In terms of crowd pull, we all know about the top 5, but can you let us know the top 10 at present? A. In the right film – the biggest initial crowd pullers would be, Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Akshay Kumar, Ranbir Kapoor, Ajay Devgn, Varun Dhawan, Ranveer Singh. Ajay is huge when it comes to franchises like Golmaal and Singham. He is bigger than the youngsters at smaller centres, but since most of the money is coming from multiplexes and big cities – some of his bigger films like Shivaay are falling behind. Q. How do you rate the Bahubaali 2 trailer? Do you think it has lived up to the expectations and hype? A. Not really. It was all over the place. It looked like some scenes were just joined together to make a trailer, it did not have any flow. It could be because the makers wanted to reveal very little about the second film. As long as the film has shaped up well, the trailer is not going to make any difference to a film like Baahubali 2. Even those who haven’t liked the trailer, will want to watch it because they liked the first film. Q. Can Bollywood ever make a movie like Inception? A. The question should be – will a film like Inception have an audience in India? Doubtful. Too high-concept and might also be too confusing for most of our audience. Q. Why a film is judged by how much it has been sold to distributor. If distributors are paying way higher amount then its their fault if they lose money. Producers are making huge money still movie is called a semi hit or average. For example – Raees, Kaabil, Dear zindagi. In Dear Zindagi producer makes around 50 crore with a budget of 30 cr. still its a semi hit. A. If that’s the case, theatrical collections would be irrelevant. A movie like Dear Zindagi should be called a ‘hit’ even if it collects less than 10 crore at the box office, because the producers made money before release itself. A film like Jai Ho would be one of the biggest blockbusters because it was made on a budget of less than 45 crore and sold by the producers for 110 crore. It doesn’t make sense, the domestic distributors have to earn. Q. Baahubali 2 trailer released and smashed YouTube records. Do you think it’s time to change your predictions ie 160cr for Hindi version. Because it will start from 20cr first day at least and can show superb trend and growth if the content is as good as first part. What if Hindi version of Baahubali 2 collects 250 or 300 crore net ? Will you change your robot 2 prediction ? A. All our initial ‘IndicineLBO’ predictions are made on the assumption that the films will carry ‘mixed to good’ word-of-mouth. Extraordinary response cannot be predicted before the release of the film. Of course, things like the track record of the director are taken into consideration, but we like to keep our LBO predictions in the realistic range until we know the word-of-mouth. Because the expectations are so high, if content disappoints Baahubali 2 might even fail to touch 150 crore. We have to look at both sides. Q. Why superstars of 90s, Govinda and Sunny Deol don’t get good roles even characters roles, but less popular stars like Anil Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt are getting film offers. Indicine i am asking this question for 11th time please give reply atleast this time. A. The actors who continue to be successful are the ones who have adapted themselves, have been willing to play supporting roles and have now become seasoned performers. Sunny Deol, even at the age of 60, prefers to play lead roles. And it’s sad to see Govinda in B-Grade films like Aagaya Hero. Why would the audience be willing to pay such high ticket prices to watch such poor looking films? Sunny still has an audience in the North, which is helping him atleast get a initial and a respectable total, but Govinda has lost even that. Even for these veterans, it’s about making the right choice of films. Even a small role in a good film can get recognition, while lead roles in bad films will only continue the slide downwards. Q. Has any actress achieved more than her contemporary male (major) star in Bollywood ? A. It’s difficult to exactly put a value to actresses in terms of box office pull. Even a top actress like Anushka Sharma has only managed to do 4 crore on Day 1 in a film. Even if the promos had worked and the film had wider appeal, it would still not do more than 6-7 crore. Deepika in Piku took the film to nearly 6. For films featuring top male actors, anything less than 10 crore would be extremely poor. Q. Has sex-comedy genre died in Bollywood ? A. It looks like it has. Unless there’s a change in the CBFC (Censor Board) leadership, it might not be attempted. Q. How much indicine.com earns per month (on average) ? A. Unfortunately, way lesser than the ‘crore’ figures we quote as box office collections of films. Q. What do you think about the business of films releasing during IPL season and which movie is best bet to succeed in this period. A. Baahubali and Half Girlfriend. Q. Why was Sarkar 3 delayed? A. As mentioned in the article, it was because of pending post-production work. The film has been delayed by a month.   That ends the QnA session, 26 questions were answered today – almost all pending questions from last week. Do join us next Sunday. Thank you.

Q. How true it is that Shahid kapoor doing another movie with Sanjay Leela Bhansali after Padmavati? A. Not true. Q. Maximum potential of Bollywood movies on a single day? A. The maximum potential could be as high as 60 crore on a single day, if all 4500-odd Hindi screen across the country were running to full occupancy. It all depends on the star cast, scale of the film and release period. The introduction of GST from July this year will also have a positive impact on film business. It could give net collections a boost of around 5-10%. So we could have films crossing the 50 crore mark on a single day by the end of this year, or next year. The Diwali day remains the best day for film business, but the two South releases this year – Baahubali 2 and Robot 2.0 will easily surpass the highest single day collections of Hindi films. Q. How much will IPL affect Bahubaali collections? A. Not much. The impact of IPL has reduced in the last few years. It’s insignificant now. People will find time to watch Baahubali 2. Q. Why is Hrithik taking a lot of time to sign a movie ? Is he keen to work with big directors or waiting for a good script. A. The wait is always for a good script, but good script sense is a different thing altogether. Barring Kaabil, he hasn’t made right choices in recent times even though he took 2 years for Bang Bang and the same amount of time for Mohenjo Daro. The results, especially with the Ashutosh Gowarikar film, were under whelming to say the least. It isn’t about big directors either, because both Siddharth Anand and Sanjay Gupta have a poor filmography.  We don’t really know what his thought process is, but he should either be doing more films or outstanding films if he wants to take 2 years per film. But again, the pace at which he wants to work and the kind of films that he wants to do, is his personal choice. Q. What’s your expectation about SRK Imitiaz film? How much it can earn in 5days weekend? A. A big opening is a foregone conclusion, because SRK films always open well. The box office expectation for the extended weekend would depend on the trailer and music. Currently, we are looking at 110-120 crore in the first 5-day weekend. Q. According to your collections, Hrithik last 5 films is Agneepath-122,Krrish 3-196,Bang Bang-148,Mohenjodaro-60 and Kaabil-104. I agree this is not excellent collections but still it’s not that bad considering last 3 films clashed with big films. What’s your thought on this? A. The collections, barring Mohenjo Daro, are good. Even Mohenjo Daro was maybe at around the same range as FAN, after negating the disadvantage of clash with Rustom. So the collections aren’t bad at all and even his rejected films are getting to 60 crore, but the problem right now seems to be the promos. Mohenjo Daro had some of the worst promos in recent times, due to which not many were interested in watching the film. The same was the case with Kaabil, the promos did not generate any interest at all, but word-of-mouth saved the film. Q. When will Rajkumar Hirani direct Shahrukh Khan in the movie? A. It may never happen. SRK was the first choice both for Munnabhai MBBS and 3 Idiots. So if he had done those movies, he would’ve probably played the lead in all Hirani movies so far. It’s a missed opportunity, especially 3 Idiots. It would’ve been a career defining film for him, maybe even bigger than a DDLJ. Q. Any idea about the character of SRK in Tubelight? A. It’s a small role. No details yet, except that his character is named ‘Gogo Pasha’. Q. Should Varun Dhawan do Dishoom 2 as the film got great TRPs? A. We don’t think he will. Even though the film got good television ratings for the premiere, it didn’t really find acceptance at the box office. Dishoom 2 might work, but it’s always risky when the first film isn’t loved. Q. What is your opinion on SRK being called as the world’s biggest movie star and the most popular star by CNN, BBC, Los Angeles Times, Forbes etc..? A. He is by far the most recognised Hindi film star in the world – especially among non-Indians. It doesn’t really need to reflect in the box office collections, Amitabh Bachchan films don’t open well, that doesn’t mean he isn’t one of the the biggest names in the industry. Q. A very important Inquiry ; Was Maine Pyar Kiya All Time Grosser?? A. Yes. Q. What is the worldwide collections of Jolly LLB 2, Rustom, Housefull 3 and Airlift. A. Approximate numbers – Jolly LLB 2 190 crore, Rustom 215 crore, Housefull 3 198 crore, Airlift 215 crore. Q. Is Ode to my Father happening? Which movie will come on Eid 18 as Remo said that they are still writing the Script? A. Salman is supposed to start Remo D’Souza film after he completes shooting for Tiger Zinda Hai. Q. What are your predictions for Padman? A. It’s a bold subject the makers have chosen, especially for a film featuring a major star like Akshay Kumar. A lot would depend on the treatment. It may not be a huge grosser, we think it’ll be a word-of-mouth film. A 9-10 crore opening, rest depends on content. [advert] Q. Hi Indicine. I visit your site most often and always read this Q&A session but asking a question for the first time. What do you exactly mean when you say a film is made on a large scale and what are the top 3 Indian films based on scale? A. When we talk about scale, it’s about the presentation of a film. Big sets, high production values etc. All of this also means bigger budget. The most expensive films are Dhoom 3 and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. Padmavati is expected to beat both. Q. Can Bahubaali : The conclusion open with 30+ ( Hindi Belt ) as buzz is never seen b4 nd there are not any big films coming ? A. A detailed analysis of Baahubali: The Conclusion is coming up. The interest is huge. The first film opened at 5.75 crore, the pre-release buzz for this is several times bigger. We expect it to open 20 crore plus.

We start AskIndicine Question and Answer session at 6PM today. Since we cannot answer all the questions that come in...

Q. Why is trade always negative about small budget films and those actors who don’t command a huge fan following? Most recently, Commando 2, it has a budget of 20 crores, its two days earning has reached 10 crores, but still trade has negativity about it, why? A. That’s not true. Any film that does well at the box office will be appreciated. The problem with small budget films is, they do not get any sort of initial and the collections are always too low to talk about it. A film like Running Shaadi, backed by Shoojit Sircar, finished with lifetime of 1 crore. We cannot report when collections are too low, unless it’s a very big film like Rangoon that performs worse than a small / medium budget film. Commando has higher costs, the COP is 27 crore without including print and marketing. The satellite has fetched 8 crore. So the film is a failure, it has no chance after the drop on Saturday and business hasn’t picked up much today either. Q. Thank you for this session.. hardly I see this kind of session.. I appreciate your predictions.. could you tell me what would Shahid do after Padmavati? A. Shahid has promised to do fun and more entertaining films after the debacle of Rangoon. He’s also said he won’t be doing dark films for a film, hopefully he’s learnt his lesson and stays away from directors like Vishal Bhardwaj and Anurag Kashyap. He’s already proved to everyone that he can act, now is the time to entertains and grow his audience – which unfortunately, at this point in time, is almost non-existent. Q. Please explain how Viacom lost 60 crores on Rangoon? A. We’ve already explained in other articles. Viacom18 purchased the film from Sajid Nadiadwala for a little under 70 crore and spent around 13-14 crore on marketing and release. Landing cost was around 80 crore all combined. Satellite of such films don’t have any value, theatrical worldwide share will be around 12 crore. Recovery is 20-25 crore on an investment of 80 crore. Loss of 55-60 crore. It maybe a little lower than this, but upwards of 50 crore for sure. Q. When the shooting of Tiger Zinda Hai is starting? By what time will it wrap up? Which will be next movie of Salman after TZH? A. It’s starting this month in Morocco. It’s a tough overseas schedule. After Tiger Zinda Hai, Salman will be doing Remo D’Souza’s dance film. Q. Hrithik Roshan’s next movie? A. Hasn’t signed anything yet. No point speculating, it’s only official once he signs. Q. Badrinath Ki Dulhania lifetime box office prediction ? A. It has the potential to do 100 crore plus, but it’s a dull period. Exams etc. But it has open weeks at the box office to perform, the films that are releasing in the next couple of weeks are either too small or cater to a different audience. Q. Why all the Heros in south are good in every thing. Dance, fight, comedy, action and emotion but in Hindi very few and new generation nobody except Varun can do everything. Plz answer. It’s my 10th question since last 10 week without reply A. There are other actors too, who can do a bit of everything. Shahid is, but he hasn’t used his ‘entertaining’ potential or his charisma to win over the Indian audience. We (and many in the trade and industry) always saw a lot of potential in him, but he has always disappointed. The younger bunch of actors are mostly doing urban films, which is restricting their audience. There’s a huge audience outside metro cities. The older actors have made careers out to making universal films. Q. Expectations from SRK’s Rehnuma? A. Expectations are always high from a Shah Rukh Khan film. But it’s no longer about expectations anymore, the audience and his fans have been waiting for a wholesome entertainer from a very long time. Hopefully Imtiaz and Aanand L Rai’s next are those films. Q. I would like to know update about Rani Mukerji starrer Hichki. When is it expected to release? A. It might release late this year or early 2018. There’s a slight delay due to excess traffic on the website, which is why the answers are appearing a little late. We apologise. Q. Based on the upcoming films, who do you think has the best line up of films and has a chance to go to the top spot among the younger lot? A. From the younger bunch of actors, our pick would be Varun Dhawan. Badrinath Ki Dulhania is carrying decent pre-release hype and if that matches or exceeds expectations – then Judwaa 2 will become one of the biggest films of the year. If both work, Varun could enter the Top 6. Q. You previously said in QnA session that the clash between Tiger Zinda Hai and Dutt biopic isn’t happening but not elaborated on that. So will you please give more details on that? I mean how do you know that? Because its not official yet you guys are pretty confident that clash isn’t going to happen! A. There’s always plenty of talk within the industry and if we hear something that we believe is from a reliable source, we put it up here. The clash is likely to be averted. Q. Do you have to deal with being politically correct? A. Sometimes, yes. Especially when it comes to reviewing the big films. But certainly not when it comes to box office reports. There’s no question about being lenient or politically correct there. Q. How much income can really popular songs generate for producers on YouTube? I have in mind songs like Kala Chashma and Nashe Si Chadh Gayi. Can they help to recover costs for movies that were not so successful at the box office or are the benefits marginal? A. Revenue can be in lakhs and crores, because there’s much more to music rights than just revenue from Youtube. Music rights are usually sold to companies like Sony, Zee, T-Series etc.. so even though it does help recover costs, in most cases the amount is fixed. Q. How’s the buzz for Badrinath Ki Dulhania? As in actual buzz not just online. A. It’s seems to be one of those few films that’s actually carrying real buzz. But we thought so about Jolly LLB 2 and it didn’t really reflect on the opening day. So it’s a dull period for film business. We are a little more cautious this time around, we are expecting around 11-12 crore. Considering the costs, it’s a good total as long as the film finds acceptance and grows from there. Q. Hello Indicine,i heard that the GST tax structure has been finalised in the form of 5% 12% 18% & 28%,when it is going to be implemented and what changes it is gonna make to the Nett & share of a film ? A. We’ll put a detailed article on this as soon as government releases more details. It also depends on whether the theatre owners decide to pass on the benefit to audience by lowering ticket prices or they retain the same level of ticket pricing and take a larger share of profits. It’s too early to talk about the exact impact on film business at the moment – but net box office collections of all films should improve. Q. Who do you think top three directors of current time make good content movies with good commercial value? A. Rajkumar Hirani is by far the best and most successful too. Kabir Khan comes second. After that it’s Rakesh Roshan and Rohit Shetty. Q. Which movie this year can challenge Dangal Lifetime? A. Tubelight is the best bet and it could achieve the all-time highest total if it turns out to be as good as Bajrangi Bhaijaan. We don’t think any other film can come close to challenging Dangal. Q. Who was the superstar biggest Rajesh Khanna, Dilip Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan? A. Amitabh Bachchan. Rajesh Khanna has short-lived craze that stretched for about 5 years. [advert] Q. Why filmmakers and new actors don’t understand making just multiplex oriented films is reducing their potential when they can make family films where they will have a universal audience. A. The realisation is slowly but surely coming, with films like Rangoon tanking. Producers and actors too are realising that the audience comes to theatre for entertainment. Even if it’s a thriller or biopic, films have to offer entertainment value. Q. When will SRK start shooting for Anand L Rai? Is Deepika and Katrina are also part of the movie? A. We do not have info on the exact date when the film goes on floors. Deepika is confirmed for the film. It’s not official yet. Q. Since EID 2018 Is Vacant , Which Film Do You Think Will Bag The Date? A. Salman’s film with Remo D’Souza is likely to the big release during Eid. The weekend has been kept open, expecting a Salman Khan starrer to occupy it. Q. Is Avatar 2 is clashing with SRK’s Dwarf film in Dec 2018 ? A. For now, yes. Avatar 2 shoot begins in August this year. Q. Do you think Hrithik Roshan will make a comeback in the big league as we all know how slow he works ? And Is HRITHIK’s next is Krrish 4 ? Big fan of your site A. He’s already in the big league. But to top the industry, given the pace at which he works, he needs to deliver films like Aamir does. Which unfortunately isn’t the case. But he’s right up there in the Top 5. He has one film before Krrish 4. Q. Some People say Shahid will be next Aamir Khan and also compare start of his career with Aamir’s Career. What do you think about it? A. Not the greatest of questions to ask right after Rangoon. He isn’t even competing with the younger bunch of actors at the moment, so reaching Aamir’s position is like climbing the Everest and he’s at the bottom of it at the moment. Q. Now you are giving your own figure….does it makes any difference on movies verdict? A. Only for some films where the inflation is too high. We have already started working on the verdicts on the website. We are currently working with people within the industry and also a few trade analysts. Q. How much does jolly llb 2 needs to be declared a superhit? A. It isn’t possible now, as it’ll end its run at 116 crore. The film remains a ‘hit’. Q. Aamir vs Salman, who is the genuinely winner among these two? A. The industry will always pick actors that release more films. Two major blockbusters in a year or 18 months, is much bigger than one all-time grosser in 2 years. Q. OMG Oh My God, Special 26, Holiday, Baby, Gabbar, Airlift, Rustom, Jolly llb 2…. arrange in terms of your favourite? A. OMG Oh My God, Special 26, Airlift, Baby, Jolly LLB 2, Rustom, Holiday. That’s it for today. Thank you for joining us. The traffic is too high today, due to which we are facing some technical issues.

Q. Is there any chance for SRK to do a 300 crore movie with Rehnuma or Aanand L Rai’s next? A. Any film grossing 300 crore cannot be predicted without watching it and even after that we need to see the trend on the 2nd day after release. But both Imtiaz Ali and Aanand L Rai’s film have the factors that are needed to be huge grossers. Imtiaz’s next has one of the top male stars in the industry and the numero uno female star (Anushka). It also has a favourable release period, so it’s about content being favourable enough to appeal to a large section of the audience, as well as getting a strong trend. Every SRK film after Chennai Express has shown extremely poor trends – excellent in the first weekend, poor thereafter. It’s about that strong hold on Monday (or the first weekday) now. If that happens, there would be no stopping the film from becoming a big grosser. How big would again depend on the film. Q. What is meant by VFX? A. VFX means Visual Effects. The enhancement of a scene through CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) using software after a particular scene has been shot is VFX. For example, if there’s a huge war scene in Bajirao Mastani.. it’s pretty much impossible to shoot it in real time. Costlier too. Instead a small portion of the scene is shot and later, during the post production, the additional elements (foot soldiers, elephants etc) are added to make the scene look real as well as larger-than-life. The Tsunami scene in Mohenjo Daro, a bomb blast in a film, morphing Sushant Singh Rajput’s face into real cricket footage.. all these and more come under VFX. In short, scenes that are shot in real and enhanced later using computer software is VFX or Visual Special Effects. Q. Now after the Rangoon’s dismal box performance it is looking like Jolly LLB 2 will cross 125 crore mark? A. Producer-total of 125 crore looks difficult. The film will collect around 111 crore by the end of this weekend and probably add around 5 crore during weekdays, to take 3- week total to 115-116 crore. It might still add a 3-4 crore more after the release of ‘Commando 2’, but will be out of most theatres when ‘Badrinath Ki Dulhania’ releases. So a lifetime total of 120 crore is what Jolly LLB 2 will finish at. Q. Your initial LBO of Jolly LLB 2 was 86, then 95, why are you always under estimating Akshay Kumar? A. Initial IndicineLBO predictions are made based on the assumption that a film would carry average to good word-of-mouth. There are other factors in play too – if Raees and Kaabil were extraordinary, it could’ve affected the performance on Jolly LLB 2. So after the release of Raees and Kaabil, we increased it from 86 to 95 and finally after release of Jolly LLB 2 we took it to 112. We have to take quite a few things into consideration. It’s not like we’ve always under-estimated Akshay Kumar. We expected Brothers, pre-release, to do 150 crore. It had a favourable release period, big banner, big release, Jacqueline after Kick, Kareena item song etc.. but it did half of that. Same with Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai Dobara, we thought it’s a sure-shot 100 crore plus grosser, but it fell short.  For Jolly LLB 2, we over-estimated the opening initially – starting it at nearly 17 crore. But it fell well short. Predictions are impossible to get 100% accurate, we try our best but box office is extremely unpredictable. Q. Akshay Kumar movie in 2018, which can touch 150 crore? A. Robot 2.0. Q. In last to last Q&A session you said the expected Worldwide share of RAEES is 85cr. But by trade its 68 cr for domestic and 35 – 38cr for overseas..  A. The final worldwide distributor’s share of Raees is around 90-95 crore, after deducting commission etc. Both the main distributor Anil Thadani and as well as few other sub-distributors lost money over the film. It was hugely profitable for the producers. This is of course, as per trade sources. Q. I’ve visited many sites regarding Happy New Year collections and the lowest collections i found is on your page i.e 180cr. A. The reality can sometimes be very different from what is posted on websites. Internally, there are trade analysts who say Happy New Year did not cross 170 crore domestically. It’s also a very well known fact within the trade that 3 Idiots did not collect 200 crore, it fell just short of it by a few crores. All of this can be extremely controversial and people will be unwilling to even accept it. It should never be about who has posted the highest or lowest number for a film, it should be about seeking the correct number – which unfortunately, very few are interested in. It’s also true that only the producer knows the actual collections down to the last rupee, which is why as long as their figures are within a realistic range, we’d like to give them the benefit of doubt. Q. What is wrong with Hrithik’s career; neither his films are performing well in the long run nor they are opening well. I know he is going through a low phase but still Ranbir’s films were opening around 10 crores in his low phase and SRK’s films are opening around 20 crores in his low phase. A. Around the same time 10 years ago, most Salman films (barring a few like Partner, No Entry) weren’t even opening as well as Rangoon. The actor is the same, just that his choices weren’t working. Every actor goes through such phases. An unstable personal life can play a big role too. Just look at clippings of Salman from the infamous 2008 Katrina Kaif birthday bash, his turmoil was clear. Today, he’s a different person, knows what his audience want and is a lot more professional in his dealings. Hrithik is probably going through a personal as well as professional low, it can happen for careers that stretch a decade and half. The trailers and promos of his last two films have been poor and have largely received a negative response. About Ranbir, when he made a wrong choice (Bombay Velvet) the opening was disastrous too. Even Jagga Jasoos could open poorly if it gets delayed again. So the most important thing for actors to make it big in the industry is right choice of films. Almost all the Top 5-6 actors have an established fan-base, a few failures or under-performers won’t make a difference to their standing in the industry. Q. What are Alia Bhatt’s confirmed movies after BKD? This year BKD will be her solo release or she will have another release? A. Apart from Badrinath Ki Dulhania, Alia has signed ‘Gully Boy’ directed by Zoya Akhtar, also starring Ranveer Singh. She also has a superhero film tentatively titled ‘Dragon’, which has been in the planning stages for a very long time. It stars Ranbir, directed by Ayan Mukerji. Q. In your previous article, you said Salman has 3 consecutive 200 crore grosser. Did you miss Kick from the list which itself a 200 crore grosser? A. Yes, it was a mistake which was later rectified. It’s 4 consecutive 200 crore grossers – Kick, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo and Sultan. Q. Favourite Movie and character of Aamir Khan, and why it’s your favourite? A. There are many, it’s easy to pick the career-best of almost all actors, but it’s extremely difficult to pick one from Aamir’s filmography. All-time favourite could probably be Andaz Apna Apna, arguably his most entertaining film along with 3 Idiots. Q. Even Raees has underperformed for SRK. A section of media had started writing him off right after Dilwale. What is his position(1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th…) as far as stardom, fan following and initial crowd-pull strength is concerned currently? A. Initial and crowd-pulling capability wise, second. Current standing in the industry would be third. The concern within the trade is more about his choices, not star power. Q. If Akshay Kumar starts giving one movie in a year… choose on big and good universal content oriented script, shoot it for 3 to 4 month like 3 Khans… Do you think he can give 300+? A. It’s debatable, because he hasn’t been able to pull every section of the audience, from every nook and corner of the country – at the same time. His last universal blockbuster was Rowdy Rathore and it’s the closest that he’s come this decade to delivering a big grosser. It has to be noted here that Khans have a very large fan-following that extends to every part of the country and large share of the credit for them commanding such a following – goes back to the 90s when they did family films like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, DDLJ, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Raja Hindustani. It firmly established them as stars who are a cut above the rest. Akshay does a lot of films, sure, but his films have to be opening much better than 12s and 13s or 15s and 16s from bigger films like Housefull 3 and Brothers. It’s not like he comes once every 3 months either, Jolly LLB 2 released 6 months after Rustom. The gap between Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, Ek Tha Tiger and Dabangg 2 was just 4 months. Q. Why didn’t Bajirao Mastani get released in China last year like they originally planned? Usually China loves these types of period/romantic/war films. Also, are the makers ever planning on releasing it there? Thanks Indicine! A. The China government has limits on the numbers of foreign films that can release in their country / theatres every year. The limit is 34, most of which are Hollywood films. Out of that 34, the limit for Indian films was 2 per year which was increased to 4 per year recently. Now, there are release costs too and distributors there won’t buy every film. For example, Baahubali was a major failure there. So since Bajirao Mastani belongs to the same genre, it probably didn’t get a release in China. Only the banner would know the real reasons. For now, the only actor who has been able to penetrate the China market is Aamir Khan. Everyone else has failed. Q. What are Chances of Golmaal Again vs 2.0 clash? A. No clash between the two films. Ajay Devgn should try and avoid clashes henceforth. It’s not that he cannot win with a film like Golmaal, but being one of the most respected actors in the industry, the way he handled the two clashes – first with Jab Tak Hai Jaan and then with ADHM, hasn’t done justice to his stature. Q. Is SRK-Imtiaz confirmed for being a solo release now? If yes, what is the general trade expectation from the movie? A. It’s a solo release, yes. Not trade perception at the moment, SRK won the perception game with Raees.. but it’s now time to deliver a real big grosser and more importantly deliver a film which a large section of the audience appreciates and comes to watch in theatre. Q. What are chances of Dutt biopic vs Tiger Zinda Hai clash? A. We maintain what we said in previous QnA, the clash isn’t happening. Q. SRK – Anushka – Imtiaz Ali film Rehnuma will release on 11th August 2017. Whether Krishna Janmashtami holiday is on Monday 14 th August or will it coincide with 15th August Independence day holiday? Please tell me the loss/ gain for the actual situation. A. We go by the government list of holidays for 2017. Krishna Janmashtami is on Monday (Jan 14). So it’s a long 5-day weekend, with a partial holiday on Monday giving the film a boost of around 25-30% because the next day is a major national holiday.  It’s one of the best weekends this year, the important thing now is to take advantage of it. Q. How can a producer earn money from music albums? A. By selling the music rights to music companies like T-Series, Sony, Zee etc. It’s a big and lucrative business. Q. What is Hrithik waiting for, why he isn’t announcing his new movie & how do u see the Kaabil box office performance as a whole. A. He is in the process of finalising his next film.  A couple of films were almost signed, but fell through due to remuneration and other issues. Kaabil is a plus for him, for the genre it did fairly well at the box office and his performance was appreciated too. Although he’s failed to create a positive perception, he’s managed to get the audience back to theatres. Now it’s important to follow it up with a bigger film. Like SRK, for Hrithik too it’s about one good film. Perception is something that changes very quickly. Q. What is the meaning of footfalls? A. It means the number of tickets a film has sold. Approximate figure. Q. Why Toilet LBO is just 100 cr? Even it will get tax free status, there are summer holidays, it is unique love story & Akshay is coming after super success of Jolly LLB 2. A. We cannot made predictions on assumption that a film will get tax free status. It might not get tax free status at all or it might get in Week 2 or 3, when it makes no difference. There’s the Ramzan period, we’ve heard Raabta has shaped up well and there’s a big film like Tubelight too – the audience saves up money for such event films. If Toilet opens at 12, it needs to carry better word-of-mouth than Jolly to get to 100. Q. Hello indicine I don’t understand why actor like Shahid Kapoor who has been in industry since 15 year did not know which type of movie audience like.repeating same mistake again and again. A. Choices make or break an actor. Until Shahid realises that the audience is simply dis-interested in films like Haider and Rangoon, he will remain where he is. When Rakesh Roshan directs Hrithik, the audience come in big numbers because they’ve been entertained by the duo’s last few films. Same with Aamir-Hirani, SRK-Adi, Ranveer-Bhansali etc. But Shahid’s films with Vishal Bhardwaj have never found acceptance, except from a small section of the audience. Even Haider, it was involved in a clash with a much bigger film, it got publicity and got those extra audience. But those audience who came to watch the film, did not enjoy it. They won’t come again. If they did, theatres wouldn’t be empty for Rangoon. Both Shahid and Bhardwaj live in some sort of a delusion that it’s films like Rangoon that the audience want to watch. It’s far from true. Almost everyone in the trade and industry knew this was a disaster, except them and a few other who hail the films they do. Rangoon isn’t a case of the audience not liking a film, it’s about not even giving it a chance because neither their older films, nor the promos of their latest film, found acceptance with majority of audience. There is a need to respect the choice of the audience too, because film making is a business. The 50 crore which Viacom are going to lose on Rangoon, is precious money which could’ve been used to make 1-2 or more films. Q. Can Jagga Jasoos be like Rangoon in terms of collection, because of the delay? A. No. Unless things go horribly wrong, that’s unlikely to be the case. Ranbir reaches out to a much larger section of the audience than Shahid. We aren’t talking about Kangana here because she’s never been a consistent crowd puller and Saif is borderline irrelevant as far as box office initial is concerned. Jagga Jasoos also looks like a happier film and it’ll have entertainment value too. We are still looking at a 10 crore plus star for Jagga Jasoos, but if it gets delayed further and if some of the things we are hearing is true, it could be a struggle. [advert] Q. Do you think it would have been better if Kaabil would have released on 24th Feb? Mahashivratri holiday. 2 free weeks. It would have got all single screens and plexes would have preferred Kaabil over Rangoon. A. Pretty much any date was better than the date that it released on. It’s too late now, but hope the industry learns a lesson from this clash and better sense prevails in the future.  It isn’t a problem when one film is bad and finds rejection, but it’s unfortunate when both films had the potential to earn a lot more. Q. What are the total collections and verdicts of Dangal, Ok Jaanu, Haraamkhor, XXX : The Return Of Xander Cage (In India), Coffee With D, Kaabil, Raees, Irada and Running Shaadi ? A. Dangal is All Time Blockbuster, Raees and Kaabil are Semi-hits. All the other films are flops. Q. Please this time answer My Question.I really want to Know.. As Ranbir kapoor has done 8-10 movies in his carier till date.And his Fan following amongst Girl’s & metro city’s is gaining & Awesome. I want to ask you that what was the fan following of SRK & Salman khan after doing 8-10 movies in starting of their career. Is that Same like Ranbir kapoor nowadays or it was huge ? A. Not even close, Ranbir has a long way to go. HAHK and DDLJ were bigger than what we call as ‘All Time Blockbusters’. It wasn’t just loved, those are films that touched the audience so deeply, that many became life-long fans of the actors. Ranbir hasn’t yet catered to the masses. Q. ‘Family Drama’ was a popular genre of the 90s and even in the early 2000s. Why such films are no more made in Bollywood? A. Lack of family films is the biggest reason why footfalls of films are decreasing every year. Recently, film critic Anupama Chopra posted a link of the decreasing footfalls. But it’s these film critics who are atleast partially responsible for fall in the number of ticket sales, along with other factors like rising ticket prices. The ‘family drama’ genre is big and has a massive audience, but isn’t explored enough. A filmmaker like Aditya Chopra who was known to make the biggest of family entertainers, opted for a urban-flick which failed badly. Not only did it fail badly, it wasn’t even watched by 20% of the number of audience that watched any of his previous films. Karan Johar films too are only catering to Tier 1 (metro cities) and at best Tier-2. These were our big ‘family drama’ directors. They seem to have moved on. It needs not necessarily be elaborate family drama either. It can be family films with human emotions. That’s one of the reason why Aamir and Salman are dominating the industry, not only are they big stars, but they are also making films that every member of the film from 8 - 80, can watch and have a good time in theatre. That’s it for today. 28 questions were answered in over 2 and a half hours. We cannot be answering all of them, but we’ll be looking at answering a few questions through the week in more detailed, full articles. Thank you for join us and apologies to those who posted their question but did not get an answer.

The dull period for the industry has begun. We do not have too many big films before the likes of ‘Baahubali 2’ which releases April-end. The major film in February is ‘Rangoon’, followed by ‘Badrinath Ki Dulhania’ next month. 

Q. What was the reason for average opening of Jolly LLB 2? Advance booking started late? Dull release period? Unfavourable genre? A. It was  probably a combination of various factors, including over-expectations. There was belief in the trade that Akshay Kumar would take it to the next level with a film like ‘Jolly LLB 2’. His last film ‘Rustom’ opened to 14 crore, inspite of a clash and sharing shows and screens with a bigger film like ‘Mohenjo Daro’. But the low opening could be because of several factors – including the budget (which was small and hence wasn’t worth a of a big-screen watch on the first day), lack of popular songs and February being a dull period did not help – although January too is a dull period and Shah Rukh Khan pulled Raees to nearly 20 crore inspite of a clash. Q. Raees and Kaabil final verdict? A. Raees collected more, but had higher costs. Domestic distributors of both films lost money, while producers of both films made profits. Semi Hit, both of them. Q. Rate popularity of Aamir Khan among masses and classes (multiplex and single screens) In India and Overseas. A. Aamir Khan isn’t about sheer craze, but more about the audience liking him and trusting his films to be good. At the end of the day, a Shah Rukh Khan might command more craze and generate initial mass-hysteria as compared to Aamir, but many more people are coming to watch Aamir Khan films in theatres. What matters is how many tickets an actor is capable of selling and in this, Aamir is way ahead everyone else. Q. Which Aamir Khan do you love more. Choices: Chocolate boy of pre 2000 era or Mr. perfectionist of post 2000 era A. The Aamir Khan everyone loves is someone who isn’t stuck to his image and keeps reinventing himself with each film. He isn’t living in the glory of his past, nor overdoing what clicked for him in his previous films. The pre-2000 era was probably weaker for him, both in terms of box office and quality of films. 2000 onwards he’s been pulling off even off-beat films like Dangal and Rang De Basanti. Q. Will 100 cr clubs will become irrelevant after 1 decade? A. It’s not big deal already, maybe for the younger actors but the established stars should be targeting 150 crore plus. Salman became the first actor to cross 200 crore mark in less than a week with Sultan. Aamir’s Dangal collected 198 crore in 7 days. So some actors are easily crossing 100 and consistently too. Q. If you Indicine had the power to choose a release date for Crack what would it be? I’ve asked it a lot of times earlier, pls answer this time. A. Independence Day weekend 2018. The script wasn’t in place when they announced the film last year. Neeraj Pandey and his team is working on it now, should release mid-2018. Q. Can Anushka Sharma become the top actress this year if Rehnuma does very well and Padmavati fails for Deepika? A. She is already the top actress in the industry. Deepika has been missing since long and her Hollywood debut did not generate any interest either. Q. Akshay, Ajay and Hrithik…. who is the bigger star in overseas and India? A. Akshay and Hrithik are pretty much neck-and-neck with Akshay ahead at the moment.  Both because he won the clash (Rustom) and does much more films. However, Jolly LLB 2 and also Housefull 3 last year had to open much better than they did. Q. When will you update your list of Top 15 Bollywood actors? I’ve been waiting for it since the time of Befikre release. A. We are currently fetching data for some of the over-inflated films. Once those adjustments are done, the Top 15 actors list will be out. Thank you for your interest. Q. Do you think any upcoming movie of 2017 can break the earning record of Dangal? A. If ‘Tubelight’ is as good as ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’, it has a chance. But most films are going to find it difficult to cross 385 crore. It’s a massive total, a lot of things like open weeks, holidays, content etc have to fall in place for any film to challenge Dangal. Q. Any chance of 150 crore for Jolly LLB 2? A. Highly unlikely. For the film to cross 150, the Monday collections have to be more than 10 crore. The reports are good, but not extraordinary – which is what is needed for a film to go from less than 13 crore on the opening day to 150 crore lifetime. Q. Why in Bollywood Friday collections are less than Saturday and Sunday? In South opening day is very bigger than other day. In Hollywood also opening day and Saturday bigger than Sunday? A. In the US, the workweek is just 5 days (Mon – Fri). Most schools, colleges and offices are closed on Saturday and Sunday. So Saturday as good as Sunday holiday here and fewer people watch on Sunday because they’ve to get back to work on Monday. That isn’t the case here in India. Most schools, colleges and government offices are open Mon – Sat with Saturday being a half day at places. As for the South, most movies there are massy. Even here, mass films drop after the first day. For example, Jai Ho collected 17 crore plus on Friday and 16 crore plus on Saturday. Even Rocky Handsome and a few other films dropped. Q. Is it possible to cross 15 cr for Akshay Kumar’s next movies like Padman & Toilet Ek Prem Katha? A. It looks difficult now. Both those movies are riskier than ‘Jolly LLB 2’ and aren’t big films either. So a little more than 10 crore opening, with content deciding where the film goes over the weekend – is what is expectation will be. Q. Can you decode for me, a film, which say slightly under-performs back home in India but does stupendous business overseas? I mean, it’s the same story, right? Then how and why is there such a chasm b/w the economics? A. The best example is My Name Is Khan. It was average in India, but went on to be a massive blockbuster overseas.  It was due to several factors – Karan Johar is very popular overseas, SRK himself is relatively a bigger outside the country, the SRK-Kajol pair and the title itself ensured that the film was huge in Gulf and other countries. Q. How much can Padmavati earn if the word of mouth is like Bajirao Mastani. I know its super early but I just want to know your views. Please do answer as i Am asking it for the fifth time. A. Any target is achievable for a film that promises a big-screen experience, but content finding acceptance is the key. Bajirao Mastani was a magnum opus and people probably felt it was a more value-for-money experience as compared to Dilwale. Padmavati could get two open weeks, Bhansali pulled off a ‘Ram Leela’ during the same period even though it had high costs. He was coming after a disaster like ‘Guzaarish’ back then, but now he’s a much bigger director than he was just before ‘Ram Leela’ release. ‘Padmavati’ as long as the trailer doesn’t disappoint, will definitely get a good initial. Q. Is Salman really doing Korean film remake with Ali Abbas Zafar. Another one with him? Is the coming after Tiger Zinda Hai? A. Yes, the film and the director is confirmed. Will release in 2019. Q. Is it confirmed that Dutt biopic is clashing with Tiger Zinda Hai during Christmas weekend ? If yes, don’t you think it would better to release the film 2 weeks before ? A. Tiger Zinda Hai will get a solo release, the clash will be averted. 5 more questions to be answered: Q. How many crores of business is affected jolly LLB 2 by Singham 3 down south in 2 days? A. The impact isn’t much. The film probably lost around 20 lakhs in the first two days. Q. First, Raabta is scheduled to release on February.Now it’s been postponed to other date.What the reason behind this? A. The film wasn’t completely ready and they wanted to avert the clash with Jolly LLB 2. Q. Are Rangoon’s promos working? What’s the buzz like? Also approximately how much should it be making to be a success at least? A. The promos aren’t working and it’s difficult to see how the film is going to be a success. A few articles will be out on the internet soon, claiming the film to be safe economics-wise, this itself is usually a sign that the makers aren’t confident of the film recovering costs and want the low-collections to create a positive perception. The problem is, the film is dark and this itself limits the audience. To add to it, Kangana was seen half nude in some promos, this will act as a turn-off for the family audience. The promos aren’t generating interest either. So a 7 crore opening looks like a best case scenario for the film, even that may not be enough because the film has high costs and doesn’t have satellite value either. A huge chunk of the investment has to be recovered from theatrical business, the trend over the weekend will be the key. If has to get to double digits on Saturday. Q. Dear Indicine, almost all websites already declared Kaabil as first Super-Hit of 2017. I want your take on this. A. It does not matter what the websites say when distributors of the film have lost their investment. We are in touch with the distributors, they haven’t recovered their MG. Q. Do you think Akshay Kumar will lose his core fanbase I.e the masses due to repeatedly doing films which do not appeal to them?I know you’ve said earlier that the masses are a loyal fanbase,but how much can their patience be tested either?The last Akshay Kumar starter which really appealed to the single screen audiences was Gabbar Is back.Since that, every supposedly massy film of his has had English humour which could not be understood by most audiences in the interiors (Singh is bling,Housefull 3).Your views on this please. A. It’s a tricky situation. The masses alone cannot give an actor even a 100 crore grosser and Akshay pay-check will drop if he does films like Gabbar Is Back and they do not work with the multiplex audience. For most films (barring Salman Khan starrers and other more universal films) 85% plus business is coming from multiplexes. So the multiplex audience cannot be ignored. What Akshay is trying to consciously do is to do films that appeal to even the Tier 2 multiplexes at smaller cities (not just the metros). It’s a large enough audience for films to do close to 150 crore, provided the content is there and that’s where the risk is. Q. So now you will display trade figure or your own tracking figure for box office collection as per jolly llb 2 collection u display…so according to me u will put questions mark on every producer figure because there will be always difference some have less or some have more in producer and trade figure….so my question to u is u always said no one in trade pandits who can track movie box office collection as much as producer… So u are thinking for any middle way to ensure producer credibility and provide right figure to public ? A. We will stick to producer numbers if the variation isn’t more than 5%. The producer deserves to get the benefit of doubt, if the collections are in the range because like we’ve already said – and Shah Rukh said recently too – only the producer knows the collections of his films to the last penny. Every single-screen is difficult to track anyway, impossible on a daily basis. But the trade gets to know when the collections of a film are inflated beyond a point. We get collections from circuits, from single theatres and also multiplex chains. The same size isn’t huge, but it’s still good enough to put an estimate by comparing collections to older films. So the industry almost always knows the range – may not be 100% accurate, but close to the actuals. The collections of Kaabil became a joke after a point. For example, Kaabil collections on 2nd Saturday was more than its opening day. Very few films manage such numbers and even fewer achieve that kind of trend on Day 11 (Kaabil released on Wednesday). Same with Raees too, they over inflated Monday onwards to ensure that the inflated numbers of Kaabil did not cross theirs. That’s it for today’s QnA. Thank you for joining us.

Q. Don’t producers have to pay tax for the earning from their films? If yes, then how can someone inflate collections upto 40-50 crore? A. Every figure that’s released online is estimated earnings of the film and the Roshans haven’t even mentioned if the figures that they’ve announced is ‘nett’ or ‘gross’ (including taxes etc). Not everyone can do this though, publicly listed banners like Eros do not inflate numbers, but the numbers released are still not accountable as its just an estimate. Q. What is the final verdict for Raees and Kaabil? And how much does Raees need to collect to become a super hit or blockbuster? A. Both have no chance to be super-hits or blockbusters. Best case, both would just about recover costs. The right of Kaabil were sold, so the producers made a profit before the release of the film, the distributors might just about recover costs. Raees will be profitable too due to the film performing very well overseas. The worldwide distributors share will be around 85 crore, about 40 crore more would be recovered from satellite, music etc. Q. When will advance booking of Jolly LLB 2 start? A. Has opened in select centres already, like Kohinoor in Jaipur. Begins all over mid-way through the week. You can book your tickets on Wednesday. Q. Hrithik said we could manage our calendar in better way like Hollywood, where 2 big films don’t release together (despite more screens). Your take on it? A. Clashes need to be avoided in the future. The industry is losing business, because a film like Kaabil would’ve easily collected upwards of 100 crore (actuals), while Raees would’ve probably gone on to do business in the range of 175 crore net. To add to it, there is increased negativity within the industry, between stalwarts, between good friends. The games that PR’s play, along with the numerous success parties and media interactions to claim victory and to create perception that your film is more successful than the other. All this and more could be avoided with solo releases and the content of the film itself can get more attention. Q. How much Dangal would have earned if there was no demonetization and if Christmas and New Year did not fall on Sunday? A. Dangal wasn’t affected by demonetisation, the situation had almost fully recovered and the film was running at a very high level right from the first day. If Christmas / New Year had fallen on weekday, the film would’ve crossed the 400 crore mark. Q. Why are fans & media so obsessed with BO collections these days, even more so than content, was there same trend in last decade & before? A. The obsession for numbers was always there, but at a much smaller level in the last decade. It was more restricted to internet forums and debates within the industry, but the advent of social media has taken the obsession to new heights.  It’s understandable too because box office numbers is the ultimate truth in the industry. It’s about people paying their hard earned money to watch a film. It shows both the rise and fall of a star. Egos get shattered, it also exposes the perception created by clever media play. The trend of films also indicates how the audience is liking the film. So even though these are just numbers, there’s a lot to it that makes it exciting for a lot of people. Q. Why the audience is not coming to watch Raees in big number ? Raees have positive word-of-mouth, but why isn’t it helping the film why? A. The film has collected nearly 100 crore in the first 6 days inspite of clash, which is excellent. The word-of-mouth is mixed, the family audience haven’t come out in big enough numbers to watch the film. It’s Shah Rukh Khan’s presence that has pulled it to such numbers – even though the expectations were higher after the kind of opening it got. End of the day, for SRK, it’s the same story as his last few films. Excellent opening, but the film hasn’t found universal acceptance which explains the drop from Monday onwards. Actually, the trend Day 3 onwards wasn’t great. SRK still needs that one excellent universally accepted film. We think it’s going to be the Aanand L Rai directed film. The director’s films connect with Pan-India audience, especially families. Q. Does Raees still have the potential for the highest grossing film of January or will that record remain with Airlift? A. Raees will become the highest grosser of January by the end of its 2nd week. Q. It’s unfortunate what has happened with the box office reporting of Raees and Kaabil…producer and the so called (I wonder why) ‘Trade’ has played foul play in contrasting directions…Although it is laudable that you have started the process for independent tracking, how effective can it be and why don’t the producers / exhibitors or whoever related to his appoint a standalone body for BO reporting whose reporting will be a benchmark for all BO websites? A. It’s about every producer coming on board to report to the independent source, for example Rentrak. But even then, without verification and re-verification of numbers from multiple sources, there could still be chances of figures getting inflated (or deflated) somewhere down the chain. More so when it comes to business from single-screens. We’ve got to remember here that careers and reputation of some of the top stars in the industry is at stake. Cover-ups can happen now, a 9 / 19 crore total can be pushed over 10 / 20 crore to make it look bigger. When the source is independent, reliable and honest.. the chances of star power getting exposed becomes higher. Since most of the top stars produce films themselves, it’s going to be difficult to get them on board. A quick look at the names who report to Rentrak reveals that they are also the top stars in the industry, they are the ones who can get those big numbers and have nothing to fear. Q. How will Jolly LLB 2 perform at single screens? Will it appeal to the masses? A. From the promos it does look like it’s going to hold appeal at smaller centres. That’s what the makers believe too, because Jolly LLB 2 is getting a fairly good single screen release. But holding appeal and actually performing are two different things. The content needs to be there for the film to work, else release at fixed rentals can actually lead to losses. Q. Why the figures are inflated.. after all producers are not getting what they are showing so whats the benefit? A. It’s about the star. Hrithik needs 100 plus, SRK needs 150 plus. Both targets will be achieved and exceeded by a long distance. Q. Do you think that RAEES makers have made a big mistake by inflating the figures as it has dented their credibility and reputation in the trade? Moreover the image of SRK can really be damaged as he is the producer? May be the fans who love all the three KHANS may start disrespecting SRK? I am one of those fans. Your views on this? A. Not really, because Raees was at reasonable levels throughout the first weekend. After the weekend when it became clear that the Kaabil makers wouldn’t stop, Raees makers started inflating too. Actually, it all began with over confidence when they declared on Sunday that their film would cross the 100 crore mark and organised a grand success party. But the crash on Monday did come, the film fell below the 100 crore mark and that’s when they started panicking and began to inflate. Once you take your film to a certain number, you have to show normal weekday drops. Also, the mainstream media reports producer figures, so they did not want to go below Kaabil from Monday. But that’s no reason to inflate. They should’ve stuck to actuals and used their PR machinery to expose Kaabil inflation in the media. Instead, they took the wrong route and the collections of both films have become a joke within the industry. Q. Does the incident which happened on the sets of Padmavati act as a negative publicity for the film and can it decrease its collections. A. There is nothing like negative publicity. Every kind of publicity helps. It has given the film a lot of free publicity, across the country. Q. Valentine’s Day is not a holiday. What kind of advantage will it give to a movie? A. A small boost to business, a little more for love films.. but may not make much of a difference to a film like Jolly LLB 2. Q. You have strongly spoken against award shows. So, how do we judge performance/movie of the year etc? There are certain actors/makers who put more efforts than others. Audience can’t be unbiased as they will pick who they like. A. The voting process has to be improved and it has to be made transparent too. People no longer watch award shows to see who wins, they watch it for entertainment. So it’s probably the best time for a Filmfare to improve their system. Get more people from the industry to vote, have a independent body to ensure that the votes aren’t rigged and the suspense over who wins should be there. Right now, when an Amitabh Bachchan arrives 20 minutes before the Best Actor award is about to be announced, it’s almost a certainty that he’s going to win and has been informed about it well in advance. As for how to judge the best performance or movie, it’s always going to be debatable because everyone has a different opinion. We thought SRK in FAN was the best lead performance of 2016, but Aamir got the award. With all due respect to him, his role did not have enough scope to really perform, like a PK which was arguably the best performance of the decade and a role for which he should have won last year – but didn’t. The effort that goes behind the scenes or preparation prior to shoot, cannot be the criteria to judge a perform. What’s visible on screen has to be judged, not the effort that he put in to gain or lose weight. Q. You said you’ll be updating the box office collections of all movies till now. Were specifically talking about films like Happy New Year, Krrish 3 and Bang Bang or even films with smallest variation like Baby and Drishyam? A. Every film and every verdict will be looked into and corrected if needed. The source is going to be old trade magazines and our own database from the last  4 years. Q. When will SRK start shooting for Aanand L Rai dwarf film? A. It goes on floors in March. About 6-7 months of shoot and 9-10 months of post-production is what we’ve heard. Q. No movie has crossed 100 crores in February and March. Can Jolly LLB 2, Badrinath Ki Dulhania and Rangoon break that jinx? A. Jolly LLB 2 and Badrinath Ki Dulhania have a chance, both look like entertainers. Rangoon it’s borderline impossible, it would be a major surprise if the film get anywhere close to 100. Even at 75 range the makers would be happy, given the response to the trailer and limited appeal that such films have. Dark films do not really have the audience to cross 100. Q. Indicine, first and foremost hats off to ur team for the last article about inflation of box office figures, u all deserved a ROADIES SALUTE, ur trustworthiness increases. My question is don’t u think our young generation stars should do more movies which tells d story of nation’s heartland, as it will help them increasing their Fan Base slowly, I find metro audience are more abt stories they watch onscreen rather fanatic, like it happened with SRK, then came HRITHIK, then came RANBIR and it continues. A. Thank you. The right mixture of movies that appeals to the heartland of India, as well as films that give actors credibility with the thinking section of the audience is probably the right way to go about it. Varun Dhawan is making the right choices. He did Badlapur which won over the critics and did well at multiplexes and now he’s doing films like Badrinath Ki Dulhania which is targeted at the core Hindi belt. Arjun Kapoor has a strong line up too. What worked for Shah Rukh or Salman in the 90s were those family films which could be watched by every section of the audience. Unfortunately these days, there is a market for those films, but it isn’t being attempted. Of course, you need actors of their calibre and charisma, the industry doesn’t have that special talent just yet but one of the many young actors could grow into a major superstar of the future. Q. Your article yesterday was a landmark article. But how it will affect the industry. Can you get opinions of Bollywood bigwigs on this matter? A. We’ve got a lot of feedback for yesterday’s article. Most positive and supportive. Can’t reveal the names obviously. Q. What do u think about republic day clash and last year Diwali clash? Combined collection of Kaabil & Raees is ahead of ADHM & Shivaay even not combined only individually Raees is ahead of ADHM and Kaabil is ahead of Shivaay so shall we consider that Diwali festival is no more bigger festival for box office? A. The only difference is, Raees and Kaabil has much bigger stars. The two films would’ve performed much better had they released during Diwali. Q. In your LBO prediction have you taken GST into account ?Are you sure that with mixed -to- good WoM Tubelight will cross BB? A. GST hasn’t been taken into consideration. There is no clarity yet. We’ll wait till it comes into effect (most probably from June 1st)  and then decide how much we need to adjust LBO figures. Q. What is your view on Jagga Jasoos trailer? Also since it is being said that it is a movie made especially for children, do you think it will be accepted by our audience ? A. It could work with children, but we’ll have to wait and see how entertaining the film actually is. The trailer has received a fairly decent response, but they released the trailer way too early. Q. Have Raees and Kaabil underperformed? A. It’s difficult to say whether they have under performed or not, because they have exceeded the potential of Republic Day weekend by a big distance. The previous highest grosser was Airlift and Agneepath with 120-130 crore. But here, the two films combined will do nearly 220 crore+ which is excellent. More so since both films came right after a massive blockbuster like Dangal. Q. How Shahid Kapoor get films after doing so many flop movies. He is now a profitable actor or not? A. He has a poor track record, very poor success ratio. But he has acting talent, which gets him films. Q. Ever since Golmaal 4 was postponed I have read a lot of articles from various sources claiming that some other film might eventually release alongside Robot 2.0 and the dubbed Hindi version might not be the only film to release in core Hindi belts but so far no film has been announced for a clash on Diwali. Do u think Judwaa 2 should postpone by 3 weeks and release on diwali? David dhawan has an impeccable record when it comes to family entertainers and Varun dhawan also needs a solid release date for his universally appealing film to penetrate in the core Hindi belts. What’s your say on this? A. Not at all. the release date of Judwaa 2 is excellent. Plenty of holidays and it could be the best non-festive period to release a film this year. No point clashing and taking on a big film like Robot 2 when they can get a solo release during a better period. That’s it for today, thank you for joining us.

Q. How much Eid, Diwali, Christmas holidays help movies to score high? E.g. What would be collection of movie which collected 100 crore on normal weekend? A. Eid and Christmas has now become an habit for the audience. They save up money expecting a big film to release and in the last 7-8 years, the industry hasn’t disappointed them. Eid has become synonymous with Salman Khan entertainers, barring 2013 when Shah Rukh Khan released Chennai Express and it went on to become the highest grosser of all time. Aamir Khan adds tremendous value to the Christmas weekend. So it’s majorly Salman and Aamir who have been making these two weekends special. Remove them and their universal films and the festive weekend wouldn’t be as strong as it look.  Maybe a film like ‘Raees’ if it had got a solo release during Eid would’ve wrecked havoc at the box office, because the content of the film was tailor made for a big Eid release. The second part of your question cannot be answered because Eid as it it won’t help, the content and stars need to be there too. These two weekends weren’t big for films 10 years ago, Salman and Aamir made them. Q. Is it possible for Jolly LLB to cross 20 crore on Day 1 box office? Please talk about box office prospects of Jolly LLB 2. A. Anything is possible at the box office, but a 20 crore figure would be very difficult for a film like ‘Jolly LLB 2’ to achieve. If it does, it would be extraordinary, but we think it should be somewhere in the 15 crore range – which is still excellent, given the costs involved. Q. Are the makers of Kaabil manipulating the collections because there seems to be a lot of difference in trade and producer figure? A. A couple of things here. One, the ‘manipulation’ that we talk about, should not be a comparison between figures released from one source in the trade to the official figures released by the producers. ‘Manipulation’ can happen from both sides. Two, it is impossible for any one apart from the producers to track box office collections. For example, how will anyone know how much a film has collected at a single-screen, which sells paper tickets? So every figure that’s put out is an estimate with upto 10% error margin (could be more sometimes). Also, some producers include collections from Nepal in their figures, the trade source might not include. Producers also include collections from Telugu and Tamil version into their figures, some trade sources don’t. We are very clear about one thing and that is, there needs to be uniformity. The outrage cannot be selective or for just one film. If we question Kaabil, we have to also question Shivaay, Krrish 3, the first day and lifetime of Happy New Year, the collections of a film like Baby and even the smallest of films. Inflating box office figures is a sign of weakness and desperation to prove yourself to be bigger than you actually are. The biggest of stars don’t need to inflate. Their box office pull is good enough to see them through to the biggest of numbers. More on this some other time in a separate article. Q. Arrange your best gangster movies in your order of appreciation. Vaastav, Satya, Company, Raees, Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai. A. Too early to talk about Raees, it has just released in theatres. Appreciation a film carries and how the audience will rate a film will only be known as the film ages i.e a few months from now. Other than that, it would be Vaastav, Satya, Company, Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai. In that order. Q. It is so sad that a movie like Kaabil not collecting as much as it should be. Your thoughts on Rakesh Roshan allegations on distributors because it is Kaabil who fixed the date first. A. We have already put across our thoughts in the article which was published yesterday (Read: Kaabil vs Raees: How the clash is affecting business of two good films) Read it if you haven’t already. It’s too late now. The clash has happened, both films are going to collect much lesser than they otherwise would. It’s true that Rakesh Roshan announced his film first, but every producer is free to release his film anytime he wants to. Q. Who will win the clash? Raees or Kaabil? Your opinion.. A. It’s too early to declare one film as the winner with 100% certainty, but unless Raees completely crashes tomorrow and Kaabil performs strongly until the release of Jolly LLB 2, the gap is just too big for Kaabil to close. But then again, it depends on perception. Raees is the bigger film and has the bigger star too, so if both films finish with 10-20% difference it’ll be debatable like the Jab Tak Hai Jaan vs Son Of Sardaar clash in 2012. Q. If Kaabil collects 115 crore and Raees collects 135 crore then which of the two will be called a bigger hit? Please answer. A. Based on costs, Kaabil will be ahead. But the film has a lot of work to do to get to 115 crore, while Raees even if it shows a decent trend can collect much more than 135 crore. Q. At super success of Dangal and now two big movies, Raees and Kaabil, people have spent their money on these three movies. How many percent impact will be there on Jolly LLB 2 collection? A. Not possible to put this into numbers, a small impact if Jolly LLB 2 turns out to be a good movie, but big if it doesn’t live upto expectations. It has two open weeks and then there is Rangoon which isn’t tracking at all. So, enough time if the film finds acceptance. Q. What can be the final BO collections of Raees in India? Can it cross the 175cr mark? Any chances since the first wee business is likely to be around the 125cr mark..? A. 125 crore in the first extended week (9 days) looks extremely difficult. The first extended weekend (5 days) will be around the 93 crore mark. After that, to get to 125 crore, it has to do 10 crore + on Monday, which looks very difficult both because of the trend and drop in multiplex ticket prices Monday onwards. We are looking at first week business of few crore lesser than 120 crore. Rest would depend on how it performs in Week 2. It’s looking like a Dilwale like finish. But tomorrow is very important for the film. Q. Why is Raees under-performing in North India and Punjab? A. It isn’t under-performing. It was better than Kaabil for almost all the days so far. It’s only under-performing when compared to the level at which it’s performing in other parts of India. It could be because of the film is based on a Gujarati don. Q. When you will update Last Flop of Bollywood actors? A. Soon. Thank you for your interest. Q. How is the word of mouth for Raees and Kaabil? A. Good for both. Raees leads at single-screens, Kaabil’s word-of-mouth is better at multiplexes. Q. What’s your thoughts about highest grosser of 2017 keeping in mind Tubelight seems risky on paper and Tiger Zinda Hai is clashing with Dutt biopic? A. Tubelight is still our top pick for 2017. It’s a deeply emotional film, if the story touches hearts like Bajrangi Bhaijaan, it’ll be unstoppable at the box office. It has Eid, Kabir – Salman and two open weeks. Will be huge. Q. Considering the delay in releasing the movie and also the clash with Kaabil has Raees performed better than expectation? A. Yes, Raees has exceeded expectations as far as the opening two days is concerned. It’s Shah Rukh Khan all the way through because it’s not the sort of film that you expect the family audience to come. But they have. Q. If Kaabil had got more screens & Got 50:50 Screens then do you think present scenario would have been different ? A. Business of Raees would’ve been lower by around 10-15% on almost all days, Raees was performing at a very high very in the first two days and having more capacity really helped. Wouldn’t have made any difference to Kaabil on Day 1 or Day 3, but collections of Day 2, Day 4 (night shows) and Day 5 would’ve been higher. Q. Being one of the most trusted trade sites, why don’t you start a feature where you post the average of the collections estimated by trade people and the producers’ figures, day-wise and lifetime. I feel that will give a clearer picture to the public. A. We get more than 3 lakh visitors a day and a lot of those people aren’t even aware of the difference between trade / producer numbers. One number is simple for everyone to know how much a film is collecting at the box office, more than one number creates confuses. The other reason why we cannot give our estimates or trade figures as the final number is because we do IndicineFBO and LBO too. We can’t be giving our own numbers and then saying the FBO is accurate. It’s tricky, we are looking for a solution. Q. Which film is the best since 2001 to 2016 in Bollywood? A. The best trending film at the box office, is probably the best too. It has to be 3 Idiots, without doubt the most loved film. We’ve done several polls because Raju Hirani films, between Aamir films.. 3 Idiots tops always. Q. You have mentioned that “Muslim audience are coming in big numbers for watching Raees” is the Muslim flavour and dialogues the reason ?? A. Obviously, yes. They are coming out in big numbers. If they start owning the film during the weekdays it could be big and surprise with its final total. Q. Don’t you think that by releasing Kaabil on 25th it has helped its collection? Or else it would have opened at max 14 crores seeing its 1st day collection. A. Yes, we truly do have readers who understand box office and spot factors like these. The fact that Kaabil released a day before the holiday really helped the film to get a big jump on the holiday. The word-of-mouth had begun to come into play on the second day. It was a good decision. Q. My question is, if it is due to films like Chandni Chowk to China and Kambakkht Ishq that multiplex audience weren’t coming in big numbers for Akshay’s films before Airlift, how come his following amongst the masses still remained steady? A. The love and acceptance from the masses is extremely difficult to earn – they do not love every star. But once they do, they are much more dedicated than the multiplex audience – who also look at content and are not star-obsessed. It’s just that the contribution from them (masses, single screen audience) towards the box office collections is less due to lower ticket prices. So, stars have to do films that have something in it for both. If a star does a film like Baby, masses won’t come. Q. Padman doesn’t look as a very interesting project. The concept of the film doesn’t look as if it will encourage many lots of people to come to the theatres, and the only release date that seems to be available for the films is in between the 4 weeks gap between Padmavati and Christmas which will also dent its collections. It might be too early to talk but want to know what are your views on it? A. Yes, we’ve been thinking the same. Conservative Indians might find it uncomfortable to watch the film. But R Balki is an accomplished director. A lot would depend on the presentation, if it’s subtly done, it may not be a big problem. We’ll have to wait and see how it goes, a lot of time still. Q. Want to know, HR was among top two star in last decade. As a fan, its lil disappointing to see all the politics and negativity around. Plus his last 2 movies haven’t opened as well as expected. According to you, what he needs to to retain his earlier position. As i firmly believe he is one the top actors (along with Aamir) we have in the industry. A. Star power does not disappear with one or two films. We’ve got to remember that he has recorded the highest opening day of all time with Agneepath, he’s delivered record openers with Krrish, Dhoom, Koi Mil Gaya, Mission Kashmir. He has all-time and highest grossers of the year to his credit too. Opening of films also depends on the concept, look and feel of the film. Kaabil did not have very appealing promos and it was up against a film which had a bigger star as well as arguably the best promos for a film in a very long time. It was never a film that was meant to take an initial, in fact the clash should’ve been completely averted because Kaabil is a film that grows on the audience and does well in the long run. For give you another example – Aamir’s Talaash opened at 13 crore solo, his PK with a big director and more commercial value did 26 crore and his most commercial film with franchise value did 36 crore. Aamir is the same, his star-power is the same, but the films are very different from each other and hence the big variation in opening. Q. Hello Indicine, since movies with good story and heart are doing well these days i was wondering what would be the collections of swades and chak de india if they came out in todays times. Swades wasn’t overly sucessful at launch compared to SRK’s other blockbusters do you think the reception of it today would be different? A. Swades wouldn’t work even today, but it wouldn’t have flopped like it did when it released. It’s just way too long and lacks commercial value to perform anywhere beyond a select few cities. Chak De India with the right release circumstances would’ve done more than 300 crore in India. Q. Why is that whenever we expect Ajay Devgn to deliver a big hit(forget 150 but even a major 100 cr grosser) we have to wait for a Rohit Shetty film/franchise to happen? I mean he is such a wonderful actor(the only national award winning superstar as we all know). Even Baadshao that looks very interesting on paper, you are ‘expecting’ only 70 cr at the moment. Why is this so? A. We like to be frank in our QnA, so even though a lot of people might not like it, the fact is, Ajay does not have much of a pull with the multiplex audience. The bigger the city, the lesser the pull. Which is why the decision to make a very expensive film like Shivaay was always going to backfire unless the film turned out to be extraordinary. In Rohit Shetty films, he turns it around because he makes those commercial films and uses Ajay’s talent too. Credit should also go to Ajay for playing his characters so well. [advert] Q. First of all THANK YOU for always being unbiased. My question is, apart from financial benefits what did Shahrukh Khan and Hrithik earned and learnt from this clash. I am asking this because after a long time both have done a good movie. A. We hope the industry learns from this. Clashes between two films are never good.  We barely manage to get 10 clean-hits a year and we only have 5-6 major stars in the industry, if the decide to take on each other.. it’s the industry that will suffer. These clashes are good for us actually, we get a lot of traffic. But for everyone else, very little to gain and a lot to lose. SRK would’ve probably got a 200 crore grosser if this released during Bakrid last year – which was surprisingly taken by Excel’s own washout Baar Baar Baar. The weekend was wasted. Rakesh Roshan too should’ve realised the buzz was clearly in favour of Raees and Kaabil wasn’t the kind of film that would’ve taken a initial even if it opened solo.  So better go separately. It was a surprise that the men involved couldn’t sort out the issue. They are all so close and friendly, it’s been affected now. So much to lose, nothing to gain. It’s been a long QnA. More than 3 hours. Thank you for joining us tonight.

Shah Rukh Khan’s Raees and Hrithik Roshan’s Kaabil are the big releases this week and like every week before the release of a major superstar film – we have the QnA dedicated to the film. Post your questions in the comments section below. Do note that 5 questions that are not related to Kaabil or Raees will also be answered. Q. Any update on advance booking reports of Raees and Kaabil? A. The advance booking of both films has opened only at select centres in the last few days. For now, Raees is leading. Full-fledged booking, across all theatres will open tomorrow. Wait for our detailed report on Tuesday. Q. Can Raees affect Jolly LLB 2 business if it gets good word-of-mouth? A. Both Raees and Kaabil can affect the business of Jolly LLB 2, if one or both turn out to be good films. In fact, if both films are well-received and trend well, then it could have a bigger impact on Jolly LLB 2. It’s one of the reasons why we’ve reduced the FBO prediction of Jolly LLB 2 from above 15, to just a little under 15. After the release of the two films and depending on the response they get, the FBO prediction will be adjusted. Q. How much Kaabil needs to collect for Hit verdict ? Will the overwhelming response at the screening of Kaabil will help it to gain the momentum ? And this time please answer. A. The ‘overwhelming’ response from special screenings can never be completely trusted, because most people who watch the film are close to the makers. However, a few people who we do trust, happened to watch the film yesterday and really liked it. The response it gets from the audience can be different, but Kaabil certainly isn’t going to be a washout like Mohenjo Daro. The pre-release reports are much – much better this time around and it should compete well with Raees. To answer the first part of your question, Kaabil could recover almost all the investment for its exhibitors at the 75-80 crore mark (depending on where it performs and how well it does at single-screens). Q. Raees craze is above the universe… I have not seen such craze before for any film, it’s evident today when SRK came to Dubai for promotion…. Do you think it’s suicidal for Kaabil to release with SRK? I’m pretty sure, the 5 day weekend, Raees will cross 100 crore. Any chances for Kaabil to reach 100 crore in its lifetime?. I blame Rakesh Roshan for the downfall of Hrithik… My next fav after SRK… A. Box office, like we all know, is extremely unpredictable. So it’s way too early to call the clash. Kaabil has gained momentum in the last 7 days, the makers have put out a few good promos and it’s managed to get a good single-screen release too. The buzz and interest only last for a day or two, after that it’s all about content. A 100 crore extended weekend (5 days) is only a possibility if Raees is loved and the other film is a washout. Q. Which movie is getting more single screens? A. Raees. Q. How much Kaabil and Raees need to get on Opening Day to be called as a Bumper / Excellent Opening? A. Occupancy has to be in the 80-90% range for Bumper opening, which is difficult. Q. If Raees and Kaabil collects around same or Raees collects less than Kaabil then what impact will it have on SRK. Also given that Raees is a bigger film and SRK is the bigger star than Hrithik. A. There’s a lot at stake with a film like Raees. Pre-release, it’s one of the most promising films of SRK in the last few years and Raees is ‘expected’ to maintain a big lead over Kaabil. But if the content of Raees doesn’t find appreciation and the film doesn’t do well at the box office, the first thing that will be questioned is the release strategy. You can’t decide to take on another big film and opt for such a big clash, if the film isn’t upto expectations. Secondly, other makers / banners will start eyeing the Christmas 2018 weekend. The film with Aanand L Rai is expensive and it needs a big festive weekend. So for all these reasons and more, Raees is an important film for Shah Rukh Khan. It has to perform, the stakes are high. Q. What are the reports from Raees first screening? A. We haven’t heard much. Q. First of all, I have to say you that, you are always or atleast most of the time your brilliant when its come to Opening/life time Prediction… Congrats for that. Considering that ability of yours, how much would have been your Opening day prediction for Kaabil and Raees if they are releasing solo on the same date…? A. It’s tough to get these predictions right, because there are so many factors involved and word-of-mouth can play a big role on the first day itself. To answer your question on what would the collections be like, if both films got a solo release – Raees would’ve crossed the 25 crore mark, while Kaabil would be in the 18 crore range. Opening day, non-holiday. Q. What was response for Raees? I heard that there had a exclusive screening by SRK to some of the industry people. A. It was for the crew and a select few others, hence the muted response. We’ll know by tomorrow. Q. Well Indicine, you might not care to answer this, but I still have to ask, can’t your team make out that on what extent a negative campaign is running against Kaabil especially on YouTube? I mean just look at the comments there and the ratio of likes:dislikes. Every dialogue promo that came out has been explosive, still people are putting it down?You never seem to have taken a stand on that and give Kaabil it’s fair share of positivity. A. Such things are to be ignored, because on the ground, in real life, when people pay to watch a film in theatre – they watch the trailer and decide for themselves, not based on the hit / dislike ratio or social media negativity. Be assured that such things make absolutely no difference at the box office, the better film will always find its way through. The only thing that’s important is, the audience who watch the film should like and enjoy it. Nothing else matters. Q. What would be better for the industry-one film getting an amazing and a much better response than the other film or both the films getting hugely praised by the audience? A. Both films receiving a very good response, is always the ideal scenario. There’s hope this time that both films will do well. Q. How genuine or authentic are these reports from ‘special screenings’? Are they reliable? Since majority of the people who attend them are friends or people associated with the movie or production A. Don’t believe it. Wait for the audience response on Wednesday morning. Q. Will Akshay Kumar’s Crack release this year? Is Akshay doing 4 films in 2017 ? A. No, it’s been pushed to 2018. And yes, Jolly LLB 2, Toilet Ek Prem Katha, Robot 2.0 and Padman. Q. Can we say that PADMAVATI is the most expensive film of Bollywood till date. Excluding ROBOT 2.0 BAHUBALI AND I .as they are Tollywood movies.What are your views on it as how much it can earn if WOM is like Bajirao Mastani.I know its too early but I just want ur views. A. It’s going to be the most expensive film. But Bhansali has shown with films like Bajirao Mastani that he can carry such films with scale and grandeur.  It doesn’t have the best of release periods for such a big film, but if a film like ‘The Jungle Book’ can go to nearly 190 crore during a normal weekend – Padmavati can do well enough to be success. The risk is always huge, because it needs to carry that ‘must watch’ word-of-mouth. Else, it doesn’t have the star power to pull the film to safety. Q. Why do you keep portraying as if Salman and Aamir are bigger stars right now than SRK. Why do you not take into consideration that all SRK films of late have been clashes and SRK still holds the record of the biggest opener with Happy New Year at 45 crs? Having big grossers depends on the film and the opening depends on star pull which still SRK has the biggest? A. There is no question of trying to portray something. Aamir and Salman are way ahead of everyone else at the moment and the entire industry and trade is aware of this. While opening is about star power – lifetime totals and the way films sustain after the first weekend is also very important. For SRK, his fans are coming out to watch his films, but the neutrals aren’t. Which explains why his films are doing well in the first weekend, but performing poorly thereafter. Star power can be stretched beyond the weekend. For example, put one of the younger actors in the same film as Dangal and it wouldn’t do much more than 100. But Aamir or Salman’s reach throughout the country is huge, which is what is helping them take their films beyond the 300 crore mark. SRK has that reach and the potential to deliver a huge grosser, but his films simply haven’t met peoples expectations. His last film that actually did well in the long run (i.e lasted beyond the first week and worked universally) was Chennai Express, then we’d have to go back to Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi in 2009. Q. My question is how is the buzz of the two movies Raees and Kaabil. Which movie has hit ratio chances as per today. Leave audience reaction aside. A. Raees is leading by a distance. It will have a big lead on Wednesday, but the real test will come on Thursday when the family audience is expected to come out in big numbers. Their choice could well decide which way the clash goes. Q. Why people are not interested in watching Rangoon? It seems a good and big budget film. Where is problem? Is rom com & love triangle time is over? A. The problem is Vishal Bhardwaj and the look and feel of his films. It simply does not excite the audience. Apart from a small section of the multiplex audience in major cities, his films do not perform. It could be the lack of entertainment value, the common complaint we hear is that his films are boring and unexciting (critics and intellectuals aside, of course). Not much has changed with a commercial producer like Sajid Nadiadwala producing Ragoon. For the period the film has been set, the audience expected Rangoon to be a lot more than just a love triangle. Let’s wait and see if the film has more to offer. Q. Is it possible to Raees to open above 25 crore? A. It’s not impossible but highly improbable. For example; If a 3-screen multiplex has a capacity of 15 shows a day, Raees would probably be running with 12-13 shows with a solo release. But now, exhibitors will retain one odd show of Dangal, and the rest would be equally divided between Raees and Kaabil. With just 7 shows and competition from another big film, it’s very difficult. Actually, a 25 crore total even with a solo release is extremely difficult. Bajrangi Bhaijaan opened at 27, PK at 26. Dangal two days before Christmas did 29. Q. Can the clash still be avoided? Inspite of knowing that the clash will result in losses for both the film’s in best case scenario too, why hasn’t it been avoided? A. Advance booking has begun at select centres, people have purchased tickets, theatres have been booked.. how can the clash be averted now? We’ve already spoken about how stupid the decision is.. the weaker film will be blamed for going ahead with the same date. Raees makers announced the date in a hurry and once they did, they couldn’t move the film after all the negativity that followed after the Eid postponement. Kaabil makers stuck to the release date, both because Rakesh Roshan doesn’t change his dates once announced and the fact that there are no other good dates. Last moment delays increase marketing expense, hence increasing costs. Which is why they wanted to go ahead with the same date. Q. Kaabil team complained about the clash during the whole promotion while Raees team kept silent. What, do you think, is the best strategy ? A. Complaining is a sign of weakness, which is understandable because Shah Rukh Khan is big and it’s not easy for anyone to take him on. The best strategy was the simplest one – release both films on different dates. Having said that, compared to what happened during Diwali last year, this clash is a lot more dignified and the main men from both sides are still good friends. Q. Raees paid previews tonight? A. We have dropped a message, but no official statement on this. One theatre in Delhi was selling tickets, which was sold out quickly. But we hope this isn’t true, the last thing we’d want is a pirated copy popping up on the internet before release. Q. As Ind vs England T20 match will be in this weekend, don’t you think it will dent some collection of both movie? How much it will effect? A. Yes. There’s a T20 match on both major holiday. Shows between 4 – 8PM will be affected by the cricket match on Republic Day. And on Sunday, the 7-10PM shows will be hit by the cricket match. The impact cannot exactly be put into numbers, but it could be somewhere between 10-15% on both days. Q. How is the overall response of Kaabil till now? A. So far, excellent. Q. Xander cage verdict? A. Flop and the word-of-mouth was extremely negative. Q. Who is the bigger star in single screens – SRK or Hrithik? A. SRK. Q. Why almost all sequels are not as good as its prequel whether in Bollywood, Tollywood or Hollywood? A. Sequels or Prequels are only made for films that are popular, loved or have a cult following. So when the sequel is made, it’s compared to the older classic. When expectations are high, the chances of disappointing the audience is higher. That’s one of the disadvantages of a sequel, but the brand or franchise value ensures a good initial. Q. Which film has the potential to beat Akshay Kumar’s Airlift to become the highest grosser January? A. Raees has the better chance, simply because it’s expected to take a better initial – closer to the 20 crore mark. But anything can happen at the box office, Kaabil could spring a big surprise too. Q. Can it become SRK 2nd highest grosser after Chennai express? A. The first target for Raees is to cross the 100 crore mark, after that it’s about beating Dilwale and crossing the 150 crore mark. That would be an excellent result for Raees. No film has crossed the 130 crore mark in the month of January and Raees would be releasing against another big film. There is a need to have realistic expectations, when it exceeds it’s always good for the industry. That’s the end of the QnA session today. Thank you for joining us.  

AskIndicine needs no introduction now, we’ve been doing it for more than a year – almost every Sunday! Post your questions in the comments section below. Begins 4PM Indian Standard Time. Q. What are the chances of Sanjay Dutt biopic clashing with Tiger Zinda Hain? A. For now, the clash is on because Rajkumar Hirani has confirmed that they are targeting the Christmas 2017 period. A few PR articles were also circulated a few day before the film went on floors. The director has also said they will complete shoot by June 2017, giving them enough time to complete post-production. Hirani has spent a lot of time in pre-production, he does his home work well and the schedule is in place. If things go according to plan, he film should be ready well before Christmas. It’s going to be a wait and watch situation from here. A lot can change because the makers of ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’ are also working on a tight schedule. But because both films are potential major grossers, the industry and both producers will lose money. Q. How is the buzz about Jolly LLB 2 in trade?does it have a chance to become Akshay kumar’s highest grosser ever? A. It doesn’t look like a film that could go on to collect 135 crore plus, but anything is possible if a film finds appreciation and grows on word-of-mouth. It’ll have to be an outstanding film to do 130 crore plus. The opening will be very good, there is interest to watch the film. Q. Dear indicine, what’s your opinion on upcoming S. S. Rajamouli’s Baahubali the conclusion & Mahabharta Triology . Thank you. A. Rajamouli directing Mahabharata is going to be huge. A lot of actors in our own industry – Aamir Khan and SRK for example – have expressed their desire in the past to make a film on Mahabharata. Getting the cast right is very important for Mahabharata, without that, the film won’t work. But giving the fact that he pulled of a film like Baahubali, Rajamouli is the right man to realise the dream held by many in the industry. Q. Why Salman Khan hasn’t won a single best actor award? A. No one cares, it’s all about getting audience to theatres. Every single actor in the industry would pick box office success over film awards or critical acclaim. Salman would’ve won atleast a few awards, if he wanted. He doesn’t want them. Q. Your reaction for Filmfare Best Actor, are you expected or it come as a shock? A. Didn’t expect Aamir Khan to win. He actually deserved the Best Actor award for PK more than Dangal. That was a flawless performance, possibly his career best and gave him a lot more scope to perform. This was more about the behind-the-scene effort that he put in, he was excellent no doubt, but in our opinion, there were better performances this year. Q. How much can Jolly LLB 2 collect in its first weekend and what’s the buzz around the film? A. Given the interest right now, a 50 crore weekend could be a possibility. Although a lot could depend on the level of opening on Day 1. Even the box office performance of Kaabil and Raees could make a difference. If one of those films continues to perform in Week 3, then it could have a small impact on the business of Jolly LLB 2. Q. Which is bigger – Akshay Kumar in three 100 crore grossers or Salman Khan or Aamir Khan, whose single film collect 350 crore? As number of tickets sales are same. Please reply sir. A. Absolutely no comparison. Salman and Aamir are way ahead in every circuit, in every city. In fact, Dangal collections will be more than Airlift, Rustom and Housefull 3 combined. And Salman gave Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo and Sultan within a 1-year time frame. We aren’t even factoring-in the overseas collections here, a single film is twice more than all the other three combined. The budget of three Akshay films is also more than double of Aamir’s Dangal. So let’s give credit to the two, they are playing at a different level altogether and are bringing in audience all across the country to watch their films. Q. Despite having various hits in 80s and 90s some actors like Sunil Shetty, Jackie Shroff and Govinda failed to gain superstardom. Why? Plz explain. A. Govinda was a major star in the 90s. He could carry films and people would come to watch him. Q. Dangal is a very nice film but if we compare the acting of Shahrukh khan in Fan and Aamir in Dangal who would you pick as best actor? A. Would pick, Shah Rukh Khan in FAN and Sushant Singh Rajput in MS Dhoni as the better performances this year. A performance has to be judged solely on what we get to see on the big screen, not the preparation or effort that goes behind it. Again, different people could have different choices and Aamir was outstanding too. Q. Rakesh Roshan showed 50 minutes of Kaabil to the trade. How is the actual response to it? Previously, Raees makers also did the same. Which one has got better response from trade, Raees or Kaabil? A. The response is mixed to good, but it’s always better to believe the response of the audience when the film is out in theatres. A lot of people who tweet that a certain film is outstanding, off-record say it was average. We are not specifically talking about Kaabil here, but this happens with 90% of big films. Dangal was one of those rare films that was hailed as the best film of the decade and actually turned out to be worthy of that praise. Q. You said Hrithik has signed a big project, when it will be announced ? A. Hrithik coming very close to signing a film happens quite often, but at the last moment things fall through. For example, Karan Malhotra’s Shuddhi didn’t happen at the last moment, but they could work together soon. Even YRF’s Thugs of Hindoostan fell apart at the very moment. Q. If released today how much business Dhoom 2 would have done? And can anyone have a Dream Debut like Hrithik in KNPH? A. It would be the highest grosser of all time. Beating Dangal may not be easy but it’ll still get into the Top 2 / 3. They don’t make universal love stories like Kaho Na Pyaar Hai anymore. With even the likes of Aditya Chopra making niche films, we do not even have the directors who can make such movies. Most of what we get today are urban films – that are watched only by the city audience, so becoming an all-India sensation overnight is pretty much ruled out even before release. The best of actors the industry has produced, like Ranbir Kapoor for example, didn’t get the perfect kind of launch that a star kid is usually expected to. Having said all that, Hrithik was the most polished and complete actor on debut. People didn’t expect a lot out of him prior to release and he over-delivered, the opposite happened with Abhishek Bachchan. Q. What is your take on Karan Johar’s statement on Kajol in his biography? A. We wouldn’t want to discuss personal life of celebrities here. None of our business, whether it’s Hrithik – Kangana or Johar – Kajol. Q. What is your opinion on Raju Hirani in taking Christmas 2017. It’s better than any other date. Festival release can accommodate two release easily right? A. There is definitely space for two films, but eventually the industry will lose money when both are potential 200-300 plus grossers.  We think Hirani, Vidhu Chopra and their team will take a call once they are ready with their film. If it shapes up very well and they believe it can compete on word-of-mouth against a big Salman film, they might go ahead with their release plans. Too early to discuss finalised plans, because either of the two films could decide to avert clash. Q. When does the theatrical teaser or trailer of Commando 2 and Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya releasing? A. Soon. Badrinath Ki Dulhania, the teaser will be out first (last heard, it’s ready), followed by the trailer. No date has been locked yet. Q. What is the latest update on Crack? A. Pushed to 2018. Q. Can Dangal’s footfalls reach 400 crore plus? A. Not sure we understand your question, because for a film to get 400 crore footfall – every citizen of the country has to watch the film thrice! If it’s about 400 crore, it’s looks like Dangal will finish with business of around 380 crore net. Q. Aamir in which one was at his best according to you ? 3 Idiots, PK, Dangal. A. Hands down, PK. It’s our favourite lead performance in the last 10 years. Brilliant would be an understatement. Q. Indicine is this true that Salman is not happy with how Tubelight is shaping up.. please answer. A. It’s not true. There were similar rumours during Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Ek Tha Tiger too. Fallout between Kabir – Salman, not happy with the way the film has shaped up – these two rumours have been there for all of their films. Google it, you’ll find a lot of old articles. There might be arguments, disagreement.. but that happens in almost every creative field where such a huge team is involved – especially when there is so much at stake. Q. What are the chances of Kaabil beating Raees in long term? And what are the factors in favour of Kaabil & Raees? A. We can’t be writing everything in our QnAs. Long term bet depends on which film turns out to be better. Detailed article will be up soon. Q. Your favourite 5 Akshay Kumar movies of all time? A. Guess it would be Hera Pheri, OMG Oh My God, Special 26, Namastey London and Khiladi. He’s done quite a lot of entertaining movies.. even a film like Awara Pagal Deewana was very entertaining. A underrated comedy. Q. Is the brand Rajkumar Hirani is bigger than Ranbir Kapoor or the other young generation actor as almost all are saying that Dutt biopic is Raju Hirani film, not even a Ranbir Kapoor film? A. Raju Hirani is the biggest and the most successful director we currently have. So obviously he will overshadow a much younger star as compared to someone like an Aamir Khan who brings in his own credibility. Ranbir hasn’t been going through the best of phases either, but that doesn’t mean he will not be a factor. He’s stil the biggest young star we have, possibly the 6th biggest crowd puller in the industry. Q. Why you predicted above 5 Cr for OK JAANU when there isn’t any buzz and interest among audience to watch it. And a Hollywood film was clashing. Is it difficult to predict low numbers for films of popular cast ? A. We thought the presence of ‘Aashiqui 2’ pair and hit music, will give the business a boost. Even otherwise, Ok Jaanu would’ve probably managed a 5 crore plus opening without ‘xXx’ releasing in the evening. The impact is something we under-estimated. That’s not an excuse though, we got it horribly wrong. Q. If the Raees keeps increasing and Kaabil doesn’t keep up, do you think the latter might open below 10 crore, much like Mohenjodaro, which would be a bad sign for Hrithik’s career. A. When an actor has such a long career and an established following, one or two films can never be considered a bad sign. For Kaabil, things aren’t looking very bright. They need to turn things around, either by putting out some good promos or the word-of-mouth has to be there. We could sum it up by saying – the response to the Kaabil promos is much better than Mohenjo Daro, but nowhere close to Raees or where a big film should be. Q. How will you describe Dangal in one word? A. Masterpiece. Q. Any update on the release date of Golmaal 4? A. Not yet. It’s not coming during Diwali, that’s confirmed. Q. Why has Akshay Kumar delayed films like Namastey England and Kaththi remake? Isn’t it these universally appealing films that have the potential of giving him big grossers? A. It does. But we think, it’s a calculated risk that he’s taking. In the past, whenever the multiplex audience hasn’t come to watch his films – they have lost money. When he does films for his core fan base (masses), even if they like it and the city-audience reject it, the revenue is too less for his films to recover costs. For example, Rustom and Airlift easily outgrossed a popular franchise film with universal appeal. 2017 is going to be a very interesting year for him, it could give him a couple of classics like 2016 or back-fire. Q. At what mark will Raees be considered blockbuster? 200? A. Yes, it will have to cross the 200 crore mark for blockbuster status. Q. Which movie can break Aamir Khan’s Dangal record? A. If Tubelight is at Bajrangi Bhaijaan’s level, then there is a chance. Otherwise, no other movie will come close. Q. When will you update ur LBO page? A. It’s updated here www.indicine.com/lbo. Q. Hello Indicine, now Filmfare revealed their winners list and like every year, this time also there is no nomination for Akshay Kumar, as they forgot about Airlift as it was released about a year ago.We know that they really don’t care about awards but it is also the fact that it will also encourage them certainly to work hard.I don’t simply understand so can you just clarify about the importance of award functions? A. We cannot answer for Filmfare, but it’s definitely a shame that Akshay Kumar and his films never get nominated – even when they are far more deserving than some of the other films that get nominated. But these actors are actors who have achieved almost everything that the industry has to offer and getting awards and nominations will neither help them get good films nor earn them money. Q. Do you think Varun Dhawan can continue his winning streak at box-office this year? A. Sure. He has the massy film with low costs in Badrinath Ki Dulhania and also a big film like Judwaa 2. Q. I asked this question last Diwali Indicine if you remember and you predicted it perfectly with accuracy. So now this question is that as both the films Raees and Kaabil are very near to release and we have seen promos songs and trailers too, which film will you put your money on and who is going to win the clash according to you Team Indicine? A. From the promos, it’s a easy pick. Definitely, Raees. Q. Hi Indicine, im one of your biggest visitors from SOMALIA, trust me guys i visit your site more than 20 times a day even though you dont post more than 3 articles a day. My question is, I heard that the entertainment tax is much lesser to south films compared to Bollywood. why?2nd question, between PK and Baahubali which movie would be more profitable considering the EntTax…. answer in details please. A. Thank you so much for visiting. We promise to post more. Entertainment tax is exempted (there are some conditions) for regional language films in their home state. Hindi films are also tax free in a few states, but the major states are heavily taxed. So even though the gross collection is high, what the producers or distributors get is about half of the net collections. Baahubali is a two-part film, so it’s unfair to judge it based solely on the collections from the first film – when there wasn’t a fixed budget for the first film. PK was hugely profitable. Q. Hello indicine you are doing great Job.. I am addicted to your site.. I am posting my question from last 26 sessions but you didn’t reply my any question.. hope this time.. plz answer. My question is. First day or weekend collection of a movie can increase by distributer because generate more interest of people to watch movie. Or it is not possible. I am asking this question bcoz recently I also saw and now I read about dangal that. Distributer are giving wrong information then actual things are different. Can it possible or just remunerating people. who just want to criticise. A. Thank you for visiting and apologies for not answering your question so far. The problem is, we don’t quite understand your question. At multiplexes, the highest share the distributor gets is in the first week, it goes down lower in the second week and further down in the third week. There are also theatres that are charge a ‘fixed rental’ to screen films. On these screens, a part of the price you pay for your ticket will go towards taxes (government) and the rest will go to the distributors. The exhibitors (theatre owner) will just get the rent he charges. So at that particular screen, the film becomes profitable as soon as the collections cross the rental amount. If it doesn’t collect the rent, then it’s loss making. That is exactly the reason why, a Salman film gets a wide release even at fixed rentals, while many of the other stars don’t, because the minimum expectation is to recover atleast the rent. And yes, figures are be inflated, but the trade usually knows the actual collections a film. We tried to explain this in simple, hope you are satisfied with the answer and it helped you learn something new. Thanks. Q. Who has more fan following among these young actors. Varun, Sidharth, Sushant and Ayushman. It seems Sushant leading now after MSD. A. Varun is leading by a distance at the moment. MSD opened because of MSD. Else, Sushant cannot even cross the 10 crore mark on his own. Things will get clearer after Raabta. Q. How much money does script writer, Director and Editor gets from one film in general ? Quantify Amount if you have data about it. A. Script writers and editors, get far too less when it compared to actors. As for directors, it depends. The top directors can sometimes earn much more than the actors. Q. What’s your genuine take about Filmfare awards 2017 winner list? Wasn’t it fair enough? A. Largely balanced, the deserving won. The winners were better than the nominations, which had quite a few major omissions. Q. Can you please tell us how is XXX Xander Cage doing in terms of box office collections? I don’t trust any other source. A. It has done well in the first 1.5 days. But the word-of-mouth isn’t very positive. It should finish with lifetime business of less than 30 crore. Q. What will be the prediction after Kaabil gets response like Kaho Na Pyar Hain? A. A response like Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai cannot be predicted, anything is possible if audience love a film. But the comparison just doesn’t make sense, neither does Kaabil feature a newcomer nor does it have a director of the calibre of Rakesh Roshan. Q. According To Your Personal Thought Which is the Best Song From All the 2017 Films? A. Did you mean 2016? It’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil title track. The other favourite was the one we have attached below from Coke Studio, Afreen Afreen. Listen to it a couple of times and you’ll love it. Q. Hello Indicine, I’m a big fan of your work but I have one small issue. Why are you giving only producer’s figures for box office collections whereas you can provide us with your well researched and correct figures? A. We are working on something new. Wait for it. Q. Who is best in these new generation actresses . And whose films have grossed the most money – Shraddha kapoor, Alia bhatt, Parinetti chopra, Yami gautam, Shruti hassan? A. Acting-wise, Alia Bhatt. Box office wise, Shraddha Kapoor – but she’s going down quickly because of poor choices. Half Girlfriend will be an important film for her. [advert] Q. If you are asked to choose only one favourite song of this decade, which one would you choose? A. Cannot answer such questions in live QnA. Too many good songs in the last 6 odd years. That’s it for today. We went through all the pages and answered nearly 45 questions. Thank you for joining us.