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Box Office Preview January 2018: It's the ultimate clash of titans between Padmavati and PadMan
Going forward at the start of each month we will do a mini preview of what the expectations are for the coming month and a quick recap of the previous month's performance for the industry.
After having one of the worst years ever at the box office, the Hindi film industry is already set for fireworks in the first month of the new calendar year with the release of Padmavati which is now being scheduled to release on January 25, 2018, along with PadMan.
Going forward at the start of each month we will do a mini preview of what the expectations are for the coming month and a quick recap of the previous month's performance for the industry.
In order for the industry to be healthy on an average there need to be two successful films per month, which would mean approx 24 successful films a year, and ideally, for better health, the big budget films need to deliver much more than ever.
In Jan 2018, there are 7-8 Hindi films lined up for release starting with three films on January 12; the quirky dark comedy Kaalakaandi, the rugged drama Mukkabaaz and the horror thriller 1921.
All of these films have niche audiences for them as each one caters to very different kinds of people. Those interested in Kaalakaandi will not care about 1921 which is a massy 2 tier-3 tier films. Mukkabaaz lies in between and Anurag Kashyap has his own audience base which again is niche but that audience is pretty loyal to his films.
"None of them will bite into each other business as they are of different genre and at cinemas, we can offer something to every section of the social strata of the society and I expect a total of INT 6-7 cr on the first day from all these releases," trade expert Akshaye Rathi said.
On January 19, 2-3 small indie films Vodka Diaries, Union Leader and a couple more are scheduled to release, whose trailers have no recall value or has attracted any audience interest, so nothing to expect here.
Then after that, we really kick off the year in terms of big films with the clash of Padmavati and PadMan on January 25, a day prior to the national holiday of Republic Day. Padmavati is expected to take a tremendous opening due to the craze of the trailer and the two-month long controversy surrounding the film. Even though the film could open to much better numbers if it had a solo release, the makers didn’t want to let go of a major holiday weekend and wanted to capitalize on an 8-day release week even if it’s clashing against Akshay Kumar’s PadMan which is also carrying excellent pre-release reports and buzz. The main difference between both the films is the cost with Padmavati at INR 200 crore being more than double the cost of PadMan. This then basically means from a box office point of view that Padmavati needs to do approx INR 200 crore and PadMan approx INR 115 crore at the Indian Box Office for their respective films to hit the break-even point for their investors and distributors and be termed as-as successes, anything about that will take them Hits or above status.
Rathi said, "Both the films are compulsive watchers and not only the Republic Day weekend but the following weekend will do exceedingly well. The box office momentum that Tiger Zinda Hai has brought in needs to be sustained and these two films will have to take it forward from there.’’
