With three big-ticket movies releasing this weekend — Delhi Belly, Bbuddha Hoga Tera Baap and Transformers: Dark of the Moon — multiplex owners are hoping for a good collection, especially after a slow beginning in the year.
"We are expecting this to be a blockbuster weekend, the movies look exciting," said a senior multiplex official. The operators believe, in terms of overall collections, the weekend could see rush similar to Diwali. Although, the quantum of money for the two Hindi movies would be just half the budget of those released during Diwali, they are hoping these three movies would turn their fortune.
All the three are big-banner movies with big names — Delhi Belly, co-produced by Aamir Khan Productions and UTV Motion Pictures, Amitabh Bachchan’s Bbuddha Hoga Tera Baap and Micheal Bay’s Transformers in 3D — but despite that, producers and distributors are confident each of them will attract an audience as they cater to different genres.
Bbuddha Hoga Tera Baap will mark the return of Big B as the angry young man, while Transformers will be a high-octane entertainer and Delhi Belly, starring Imran Khan, Vir Das and Kunal Roy Kapoor, is being positioned as an adult comedy.
“All the movies have created a buzz and will cater to a wide variety of audience,” said Vikram Malhotra, COO Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, which is releasing the movie on July 1 and third installment of Transformers series on June 29 with over 60 paid previews on Tuesday. The movie will also be dubbed in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.
For Delhi Belly despite having an ‘A’ certificate, UTV is planning to have wide release with across 1,300 screens in India and 250 overseas. “The movie promos have generated a lot of excitement. We feel it has got a commercial potential,” said Siddharth Roy Kapur, CEO, UTV Motion Pictures. Trade analysts believe the revenues would be shared in the first weekend. “But it is the revenues generated in the second week that will determine which one is liked more,” said a trade analyst.
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Advance bookings of Transformers opened on Sunday, while the other two movies are expected to open advance bookings by Wednesday. A senior executive of Inox said 15-20 per cent of the total capacity available for Transformers for paid preview in all its theatres across cities has been already booked.
Industry experts say innovative marketing with catchy promos and songs have succeeded in creating the excitement.
| MOVIES & MOOLAH | |||
| Movie | Production/ Distrubutors | Budget (Rs Crore) | Number of screens |
| Delhi Belly | Aamir Khan Productions and UTV Motion Pictures | 20-25 | 1550 |
| Bbuddha Hoga Tera Baap | AB Corp and Viacom 18 Motion Pictures | 12-Oct | 1000 |
| Transformers: Dark of the Moon (releases on Wed, Jun 29) | Paramount Pictures and Viacom 18 Motion Pictures | Over 600 screens (in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu) | |
For instance, Delhi Belly kick-started its marketing with the song “Bhaag D K Bose”, which is already a rage among the youth. Aamir Khan Productions also held a success party of the song with a jam session with music director Ram Sampath. The movie also has an item song by Aamir Khan.
For Bbuddha Hoga Tera Baap, Big B did not have the standard 10-city promotional tour but he recorded the promo in five languages and it doing his bit through his blogs and twits.
For Transformers, Viacom 18 Motion Pictures roped in Akshay Kumar. The actor's voice has been dubbed for the character Optimus Prime the Hindi version.
After the cricket season, Bollywood seems to be having a good run at the box office with Salman Khan’s Ready raking in over Rs 119 crore and Reliance Big Pictures’s multi-starrer comedy caper Double Dhamaal collecting Rs 25.5 crore over the weekend, making it the second highest opening for this year.
The industry is keeping its fingers crossed for this month, with back-to-back releases from Vishesh films’ Murder 2 (July 8 ), UTV’s Chillar Party (July 8), Zindagi Na Mile Doobara starring Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akthar and Abhay Deol (July 15) and Ajay Devgn’s Singham, a Tamil remake.