WILL NEERJA END FOX STAR STUDIOS’ BAD LUCK?

As I mentioned in Fenil’s Bollywood Talk # 383, Fox Star Studios have had a very bad run since a couple of years. Thankfully, they managed to have some amount of success with Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (though it was an underperformer). 2016 for them begins with Neerja and thankfully, it looks like a winner and hopefully that would reflect in the box office collections as well.

Neerja features Sonam Kapoor and it’s a true story of Neerja Bhanot who was murdered while saving passengers from terrorists on board the hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 on 5 September 1986. Sonam is often ridiculed for her not-so-great-acting skills. But everyone is of the opinion that at least from the promos, it seems like Sonam has delivered the best performance of her career. The trailer is quite exciting and gripping. The film also stars Shabana Azmi and marks the debut of music composer-singer Shekhar Ravjiani. The songs haven’t made any impact and the excitement isn’t that great as of now. But if the word of mouth is good, it can turn out to be a big grosser. Also, after Airlift, none of the films managed to really impress the audience. Hence, Neerja can fill the void and bring audience to the theatres in hordes.

Besides Neerja, tomorrow, as many as 4 other films are releasing – Loveshhuda, Ishq Forever, Direct Ishq and Rhythm. Loveshhuda might have some respectable collections but it would be nothing like Sanam Teri Kasam, a similar film of newcomers that released 2 weeks back. Ishq Forever will come next while Direct Ishq and Rhythm will prove to be disastrous. Loveshhuda and Ishq Forever too won’t have a good run either at the box office. Whenever such clashes between small-budget films happen, the result is always disaster. The clash of these films sadly would be no exception.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE NEERJA AND WHY? DO LET ME KNOW!