By Momin Ali Munshi
Eid-ul-fitr is round the corner ( well its tomorrow to be exact) and this can mean only one thing at the box office. War! Eid-ul-fitr is perhaps the holiest day for our film-makers and everyone wants their films to hit cinemas on Eid. And why wouldn’t they? The Eid festivities with the holidays , almost always guarantee a bumper opening at the box-office and who would want to miss that! Thus every year, when Eid comes about , all our Lollywood- wallahs decide to bring out their films from the old tainted cans to the shining silver screens!
While Lollywood is churning out its films , our neighboring country India always sends an export , which is usually a multi-crore Khan starrer film, and this poses some serious threat to our local films. But Eid openings are so huge that almost every one is accommodated, even the Hollywood biggies which are usually a part of this mix! But usually its Bollywood vs Lollywood and though our Lollywood does make money, but it always suffers at the hand of Bollywood!
Here is a breif summary of the past few years
Year Lollywood Contenders Bollywood Contender Winner
2010 Haseeno ka Mela Dabangg Dabbang
Wohti Le Key Jani Aay
2011 Love Mein Ghum Bodyguard Bodyguard
Bhai Log
Jugni
2012 Shareeka Ek Tha Tiger( banned) Shareeka
2013 Ishq Khuda Chennai Express Chennai Express
Josh
Main Hoon Shahid Afridi
( got postponed last second)
So in the past few years we can see a clear trend emerging that Bollywod always wins ( 2012 was an exception as the film “Ek Tha Tiger” got banned). Now lets come to 2014 and see why Sultanant is lucky! Im sure lots of you are fuming with rage and want to shout out that this year has the Salman Khan starrer “Kick”!!! But I shall explain it all so lets see why Sultanat is so lucky….
1. There is no local competition for Sultanat as no other Lollywood film is releasing and this guarantees a smooth run for the film in the small centers and the mass dominated areas.
Yes , Now lets come to Kick!
2. Something very strange happened this year. Usually Eid releases come on Eid so there is no bound on as to what day Eid falls on. The film can come on a Thursday, Tuesday or what ever day Eid falls on. But this time around the directors decided to release the film on a normal friday which was about five days before Eid! ( That the film emerged as a blockbuster and the gamble played off is another story but the main point is that the film released before Eid).
Furthermore in Pakistan it released on Thursday which gave it another extra day at the box-office! So when Eid comes tomorrow the film Kick will have been playing in cinemas for about five days( including a weekend). This means that a large size of the audience, pretty large, has already seen the film! So when Eid comes about they will have only one Urdu/Hindi film to see which is our beloved “Sultanant”
Thus as luck would have it Sultanat has no competition from Lollywood and furthermore no competition from Bollywood. Those who doubt my theory, well the advance bookings at various cinemas clearly indicate a better advance for Sultanat! Moreover cinemas such as Atrium are giving the film up to four shows per day, and this number is huge considering Sultanat is a Pakistani film ( yes it can also be attributed to the power of ARY Films but the cinema-wallahs are seeing the money and hence giving Sultanat a decent amount of shows)
Now lets see how Sultanant opens up when it releases tomorrow and hopefully if things go in its favor its seems like our Lollywood might just win the Eid battle this time around!
Best of luck team Sultanant and Eid Mubarik to all our readers.
