First things first. There is a certain segment of media, industry and surprisingly even ‘aam junta’ amidst which a (wrong) perception has been created that ‘Heroine’ hasn’t done too well at the box office. Fair enough, so when it comes to the entertainment quotient, liking/disliking or general feedback, anyone and everyone has all the right to have a point of view or opinion; nothing wrong with that. However numbers have their own story to tell and if the first week collections of over 37 crores are any indication, Heroine has managed to sail through. Of course it could have covered a greater distance but it is certainly not a downer.
When a film is centred on the very industry of which it is a product, there are bound to be mixed reactions. ‘Heroine’ got that as well. However what was surprising was some sever backlash that it suffered from within the industry. Moreover continued success of Barfi! put further dent in the film’s collections. It was clearly fate coming into play because even UTV, producers of both the films, wouldn’t have imagined that Barfi! would enjoy such an extended run while Heroine, a film belonging to an altogether different genre, would actually get impacted by that.
Having said that, and as stated earlier, since audience too had its own opinion about Heroine, universal acclaim wasn’t expected for the Kareena Kapoor starrer. Still, for a film where she was the one holding centre-stage along with her director Madhur Bhandarkar, Heroine is next only to Vidya Balan’s Kahaani which stays on to be the biggest female centric grosser till date at 60 crores plus. In the final report card that would be out though, Heroine would be around 10-13 crore below Kahaani though if one takes into account the overseas collections as well, former would have a clear edge. Overall, an average affair.
