Despite a month long gap, new releases fail at the box office
- IndiaGlitz, [Monday,March 28 2011]
Three small time films - 'Monica', 'Life Goes On' and 'Happy Husbands' - released over the weekend gone by. Expectedly, the films met with a disastrous response at the box office and didn't have any worthwhile collections whatsoever to show at the box office. With practically empty theaters greeting these films, it was crystal clear all over again that Bollywood would have to wait for a period of harvest in the month of April when newer films start hitting the screens.
'Monica' was the best bet of all and in fact saw good reviews coming its way as well. A drama about nexus between politics and media, this Ashutosh Rana and Divya Dutta saga was reasonably gripping and it is surprising that the film wasn't promoted at all. In fact thematically it did boast of similarities with 'No One Killed Jessica' as well, what with the central protagonist here being a young woman who is murdered in a cold blooded fashion and how a crusade begins to get her justice. However no one even knew that a film by this name had released which meant that all good effort by the makers went totally unnoticed. The film doesn't stand any chance to be in the running after it completes it's first week at theaters.
'Happy Husbands' was a pathetic attempt at film making and a Z grade affair which should have been better relegated to the cans. A film featuring newcomers, it did see release in certain pockets of the country and only ended up surprising a few that how could it have been released at all. A rank bad film, 'Happy Husbands' is an unmitigated disaster both critically as well as commercially.
Third release of the week, 'Life Goes On', at least boasted of known names like Sharmila Tagore, Om Puri and Soha Ali Khan. However it's fate wasn't any better as it came unannounced and that too at bare minimum theaters and that too in very few centres across the country. Made for niche audience, it didn't even manage to make it's presence felt. Odd show timings coupled with zero promotion as well as a weak title only ensured that the 'Life Goes On' won't find any visibility for itself on home video and satellite either.