Ek Hai 'Ek Tha Tiger'

by Piyush Diwan from Naachgaana

‘Ek Tha Tiger’ had to pay this price. The makers had to decide whether to get a new unheard of opening day record, or whether to have a solid first 4-5 day business with minimal day wise drops. In other words they had to decide between a 15th Aug release, or a 17th Aug release. They opted for the former.

After showing the world what the current capacity to collect is on a single day by raking in 32 Cr on the first day, ETT dropped massively on Day 2 and collected just 15Cr. Today on its third day, it might do a bit lower- maybe a 13 Cr- or maybe just about the same- a 14-15Cr.

Now when the makers decided to opt for the unheard of first day record, this kind of a apparent timid response on the next 2 week days was surely not unexpected. But obviously the makers decided to face the backlash of this seemingly alarming drop from all over- naysayers, disbelievers, haters, and also idealists (Who think that getting a 20Cr on a weekday is Halwa).

So what is the reason for this drop? It is almost condescending when I write it out here in plain English like a wise elderly fellow telling a five year old that the world is round.

People are just waiting for the weekend to watch the film. That’s it.

I saw it FDFS. I am sure many of the other fans too watched it on the first day. Now the people who want to watch the movie will anyway watch it, never mind the reviews (which aren’t bad actually). They are just waiting for Saturday and Sunday to come. I will also watch it again on either Sunday or Monday (didn’t even think of watching it yesterday or today). Why should I?

The business would again reach 20 plus tomorrow and maybe touch 25 on Sunday. Eid is something which is tough to predict. Anyway the film will cross the 100 Cr halo figure before Eid arrives on Monday.

But But But… this is not the only point I am trying to make here. Two more- please bear with me.

1. Any rational observer of the Indian Box office scenario today will be able to tell you that the movie going audience is finite. It might be anything between 2-4 Cr people- hard to be exact about such things. I can make 10 different kind of calculations and arrive at 10 different numbers for it- but most of them would be in this range. But the number isn’t important to the point I intend to make. For big movies, it is all about how much of this audience can you pull in and in what manner. Some will pull all of them in 1 week. Some in 2. Some in 3. Some in 4. Some never. In fact most never. In fact all never except a 3 Idiots.

And repeat viewings depend on the genre as well as the content of the film. 3 Idiots managed maximum repeat viewings- again hard to put a number to it- but could be anywhere between 10-15 percent. The fact that it almost had 4 open weeks also helped. But essentially it was a movie that made everyone happy- everyone- I mean every every one. Dada Daadi, Papa, Mummy, Son, Daughter, Uncle, Aunty, Kuttas- everyone. An action film- however well made cannot make all the age-groups happy.

So while Ek Tha Tiger does about 125 Cr in first 6 days and pulls in almost half of the movie going audience- it will find it tough to get that repeat viewings from the average cine goer as a) It is not as good as 3 Idiots b) It is not the most audience friendly genre c) It has Salman Khan who repels a section of the crowd who will never believe in him even if he gives them a 3 Idiots. Frankly after having seen Ek Tha Tiger, if Aamir or SRK would have been in place of ETT it would have got a much better response on facebook at least (if not on the BO).

2. Why Salman Khan is GOD at the Box Office Today:

Huh 33 Cr haan. No big deal. It is just 100 percent collection on 1 day- Amitabh Bachchan did it for four weeks. Again it is almost condescending when I write it out here in plain English like a wise elderly fellow telling a five year old that the world is round.

In 1970s there were 150-250 prints of a movie released. All single screens with 4 shows a day. So 250*4=1000 shows a day all over India. So 7000 shows in one week- with no piracy- no twitter- no facebook- no mobile phone- almost no ways to spread the word of mouth- except- the word of mouth only. So people used to be excited for a movie and didn’t get tickets for days- big movies and stars that is. Today ETT had 1125 shows on the first day in Mumbai only. Baaki likhoon kya, ki khud samajh gaye?

Kehne ka matlab yeh hai- har era ke apne challenges, apne faayde, aur apne quirks hote hain. Is liye stop comparing stars across generations. Dilip Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan , Salman Khan, aur Shah Rukh Khan megastars hain- aur koi yeh baat nahin badal sakta.

Kahan se shuru kiya tha, aur kahan pahunch gaya- I feel like Anurag Kashyap of Gulal!