It was a tizzy Thursday.
In the-bigger-the-better battle of the box office, all eyes were on the Dhurandhar screening at 4pm. It was shifted to 7pm, then 7.45, before a final message said the show was cancelled. A tech glitch. “Even the celeb screening has been called off.”
The buzz turned into a sneer.
Ranveer Singh was kayoed. For his faux pas at the closing ceremony of IFFI where he referred to Chamunda Devi as “a female ghost” and mimicked actor-director Rishabh Shetty’s climactic performance in Kantara 2.
The hero’s unintentional “slight” didn’t explain the wintry cold advance booking of a patriotic spy thriller that reportedly cost upwards of ₹300 crore.
So the trailer was mauled. Who’ll voluntarily watch a film where a man’s face is tortured and torn to pieces with wires? And why did Aditya Dhar announce that his 22-year-old assistant Ojas Gautam had foregone sleep for four nights to cut the trailer? Who hands over such an important assignment to an assistant? Because he’s your brother-in-law?
The unpreparedness was also questioned. Post-production could sometimes go on for hours before release. But why would a trailer be cut in a nail-biting rush especially when it was due for a launch a week ago? Initially scheduled for November 12, the trailer launch of Dhurandhar was postponed “as a mark of respect to the victims and families affected by yesterday’s Delhi blast”. So a week later, why would it require all-nighters by a 22-year-old?
The unease spilled over to the dithering over whether Dhurandhar was going to be one lengthy film of over 3.5 hours or two lengthy instalments of one film. How could they be undecided about it as late as mid-November?
But the proof of a movie is in its watching. The detailing of politics and gang wars inside Pakistan did not arouse the thrill expected from Dhar’s spy adventure. Leading to the important discussion that bigger is not necessarily better.
Sandwiched between his slips, Ranveer also dropped a reality byte. That they had designed Dhurandhar as a visual spectacle to bring the audience back to the big screen. Hoping for the December magic to work like it did for Animal in 2023 and Pushpa 2 in 2024.
But although Dhurandhar will serve as a footnote on how a potent connection with the audience is more important than expensive large screen visuals, it continues to be the season of big, bigger, biggest. Sitting in LA and ready with Avatar: Fire and Ash, even James Cameron and 20th Century Fox had their team call their third instalment “the world’s biggest film of the year” with a “glow up”, a lighting display on Mumbai’s famous Sea Link. A spectacular teaser will also be launched on the ghats of Benares next week before the new Avatar reaches theatres on the 19th.
Then there’s T-Series releasing Border 2, their “costliest” film, this January with Sunny Deol in the lead. It is said to be more expensive in its making than Adipurush, which had a budget of over ₹600 crore. In addition to the production cost, Border 2 has a huge amount set aside for promotion with media junkets planned to border towns like Amritsar.
But big budgets alone don’t pique the audience. A volatile trailer with high-octane energy that drowns all else including logic would explain why Dhanush managed a strong opening of ₹16 crore for Tere Ishk Mein that’s poised to cross ₹100 crore. It’s advantage Dhanush/Tere Ishk Mein this week.
Meanwhile, two young girls have quietly slipped into the film industry, escaping the glare reserved for nepo kids. Partnering Ranveer Singh is Sara Arjun, daughter of actor Raj Arjun (the wicked father in Aamir Khan’s Secret Superstar). And Simar Bhatia, Akshay Kumar’s niece who takes her mother Alka’s family surname, romances Agastya Nanda in Ikkis.
Santa thus delivers a new hamper to chew on and carry into the next year.
Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and an author