There is a stark difference in the way ‘Barfi!‘ is seeing a release this weekend when compared to Ranbir Kapoor’s last flick ‘Rockstar‘. It had come with a huge hype and hoopla around it. The song ‘Sadda Haq‘ was a chartbuster weeks before the film’s arrival in theatres, Imtiaz-Ranbir combo was hot property, rumours around Ranbir-Nargis affair had fuelled the tabloids for months and the general sentiment was that the film would take a record beginning for a Ranbir starrer. Well, it happened that way as well.
On the other hand no one is expecting any records to be broken with ‘Barfi!‘. By the look of it, this one seems to be more of an experimental affair instead of a quintessential mainstream offering. The promotion has been decent, nothing earth shattering, while the lead pair of Ranbir and Priyanka too have restricted themselves from going overboard while pitching the film to the audience. The music is of extremely high quality, though it isn’t the kind that can be termed as a ‘crowd puller’.
All of this means that the film’s opening is expected to be good, though not exceptional, with 60%-70% occupancy to begin with. Of course class multiplexes should record much higher collections but on an all-India note, it should be a fair (and not record breaking) start for the film. All would eventually boil down to word of mouth and if that is positive, expect a boom in collections over the rest of the weekend.
A lot is being said about ‘Barfi!‘ having only one week for itself since ‘Heroine‘ arrives next week. Well, let’s not forget that both are UTV productions, which means the makers have a choice to allocate the right number of shows to both the films, provided ‘Barfi!‘ indeed catches audience fancy.
Meanwhile ‘Jeena Hai Toh Thok Daal‘ and ‘Qayamat Hi Qayamat‘ are also releasing alongside ‘Barfi!‘. While it would be a struggle for these films to find an all-India release, a run of over a week would be nothing less than a miracle for them.
