FINAL DRY WEEK BEFORE FLOW OF BIGGIES BEGIN FROM NEXT THURSDAY!

The debacle of Thugs Of Hindostan has hit business hard. This Aamir Khan-Amitabh Bachchan starrer was expected to rule the box office for a couple of weeks. But it has turned out to be a miserable flop. The cracks started developing from Day 2 itself and the film crashed heavily in the weekdays. There has been a huge reduction of shows in Week 2 and the same will happen from tomorrow as well, when it enters into the third week. This has led to tough times for the exhibitors and they had no choice but to replace the shows of Thugs Of Hindostan with regional and Hollywood films. Holdover films like Badhaai Ho, AndhaDhun, Baazaar etc also came to their rescue.

A few Hindi films also released last week but all of them – Mohalla Assi, Pihu and Hotel Milan – didn’t work at all the box office. This week will also be poor but better than last week. It’ll see the release of Bhaiaji Superhit. It’s a film in the making since almost 4-5 years and is directed Neerraj Pathak, who earlier made an interesting but commercially flop film, Right Yaaa Wrong. That was a serious courtroom drama while Bhaiaji Superhit is an action comedy of an UP-based gangster who tries his hand in films. It has an ensemble cast, comprising of Preity Zinta, Ameesha Patel, Arshad Warsi, Shreyas Talpade, Pankaj Tripathi, Jaideep Ahlawat and Sanjay Mishra.

The trailer however looks very poor and hardly funny, although Preity seems to be in form. Also, it comes too late in the day and after the debacles of Sunny’s other comic films like Poster Boys and Yamla Pagla Deewana Phir Se. Both these films didn’t work in cinemas but were hits on TV. Bhaiaji Superhit will also follow suit. However, it’s box office performance would be better than Mohalla Assi. This film of Sunny opened at Rs. 30 lakhs and Bhaiaji Superhit hopefully should open in the Rs. 80 lakhs-1.10 crore range. The single screens in B and C centres might open better than multiplexes in cities.

The other Hindi release of the week is The Dark Side of Life: Mumbai City. It’s biggest USP is Mahesh Bhatt as an actor in a dynamic role. Kay Kay Menon, Deepraj Rana, Nikhil Ratnaparkhi, Jyoti Malshe and many others also star in this flick. The trailer of the film is very sad and unintentionally hilarious. There’s no buzz about the film at all and it’ll have a disastrous run.

All eyes are now on 2.0, which releases next Thursday, on November 29. In fact, from next week till the end of the year, there’s a significant release every Friday, from Kedarnath to Mauli [Marathi] to Aquaman to Zero to Simmba. Exciting days are back with a bang!

MID-DAY (September 11, 2018)

Mahesh Bhatt says filmmaking is such a “high stress business” that it consumes people, often making them prone to substance abuse and mood swings.

Bhatt says the constant urge to get validation for one’s work could be terrifying. “It [films] is a high-stress business and that’s why, not many can do it. That’s why you have people prone to substance abuse and mood swings. You have a tendency to gravitate towards depression because you are dependent continuously,” Bhatt told reporters.

“When you show a trailer, you constantly wonder if there will be claps. It takes a lot of courage to be on the centre stage and hope that people will shower compliments on you,” he added.

The director was speaking at the trailer launch of The Dark Side Of Life: Mumbai City, with which he will make his acting debut. He also opened up about his daughter, Shaheen, who was diagnosed with clinical depression, and said she will chronicle her experience in a memoir to be released in October. “My daughter Shaheen discovered she’s suffering from clinical depression at 16. She also came to a point of considering suicide at the age of 12 or 13. This happened at home. Even in our industry, a girl gave away her life. She came to us for work once, but we couldn’t work together. I still remember seeing her body, the one who came here to work,” he said.

Dark Side Of Life: Mumbai City, directed by Tariq Khan, also stars Kay Kay Menon, Nikhil Ratnaparkhi, Avi Parsdasani and is scheduled to release on October 19.

Mahesh Bhatt faces the camera to throw light on dark issues like suicide and communal harmony, among others
Rohit Bhatnagar (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 27, 2018) 

Writer-filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt will be seen as a Muslim painter who, after he is disowned by his son, opens an old age home in The Dark Side Of Life: Mumbai City. The film touches on a father-son relationship, suicidal tendencies and communal harmony. Bhatt has earlier done a cameo in Sanjoy Nag unreleased Yours Truly, with wife Soni Razdan in the lead.

Confirming the news, Bhatt says, “When someone tells you there is role for you in a film and no one can play it better, you can’t say 'no'. When Tariq (Khan, director) narrated this story of a Muslim guy who has adopted a Hindu boy who lives in the US, I really liked it because it portrays the father-son relationship very sensitively and gives a beautiful message to those who are driven by frustration to end their lives. Suicide is 21st century’s worst self-generated disease and a harsh reality no one is talking about.”

He goes on to point out that in the hyper-competitive world we are living in, we are our own enemies. “It’s a unique film and we should support such work. Tariq had everything sorted and I would only follow his directions. I’m not an actor so the credit for making me act goes to him,” Bhatt concludes.