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Come Friday and at any given time the same film will be playing on five out of six screens in the same multiplex. The shows may or may not go houseful, but Sajid Khan’s Housefull will be playing 25 times every day at the same plex property — Fame (South City).
“The IPL is finally over and it’s time for movies (read Bollywood) to make a comeback,” says Aditya Shroff of Fame Cinemas, almost triumphantly.
“People have been waiting to watch a big movie (read Bollywood) for over two months since My Name is Khan. The buzz around Housefull is very good within the industry and May 1 is a holiday. Keeping all these factors in mind, it makes perfect sense to go with so many shows for our audience (read Bollywood).”
The plexes are going ballistic with Housefull, after a two-month Bolly drought, but the total number of prints for the Bengal territory hasn’t been able to match 3 Idiots or My Name is Khan. While the Aamir Khan blockbuster released on 103 screens in the state and the Shah Rukh Khan biggie on 130, the Akshay Kumar comedy hits 95 screens.
“With two big Bengali films — Amanush and Wanted — releasing this Friday, we couldn’t go any wider with Housefull,” explains Debashish Dey, distribution head of Aum Moviez, which is handling the Sajid Khan multi-starrer in Bengal.
Oscar-hero The Hurt Locker has drawn decent crowds in week one, as has Aparna Sen’s The Japanese Wife in week three, but the city plexes are now desperate to jump back on the big Bollywood bandwagon. INOX has gone huge too, playing Housefull 63 times daily at its four plexes, 17 at Forum alone.
“The Bolly season starts again and the first release is always big. We saw that last year with New York, which got the first-mover advantage after the plex-producer strike got over,” says Captain Virendra Marya of INOX.
Director Sajid Khan has made a public pledge to producer Sajid Nadiadwala to get Rs 60 crore-plus collections for the Rs 40 crore film. For that to happen, the first weekend must go houseful as Housefull will have Yash Raj’s Badmaash Company and Gurinder Chadha’s It’s a Wonderful Afterlife for box-office company from May 7.