Trade Talk: Low footfalls for Akshay Kumar's Ram Setu and Ajay Devgn's Thank God shock the trade

There is a growing dread among film distributors and exhibitors about the rapidly eroding audience in movie theatres.

Both the major Diwali releases Ram Setu and Thank God have underperformed to varying degrees. For the makers of Ram Setu, to do triumphant somersaults just because it has done better than the neighbour is not only foolhardy but also self-defeating.

According to box-office figures, Ram Setu collected around Rs 8 crore on the third day as opposed to Thank God’s Rs 4 crores on Day 3. This doesn’t actually mean much for an Akshay Kumar starrer.

Trade guru Taran Adarsh observes this year’s Diwali collections were among the lowest ever. “This Diwali has not been fruitful for the industry. If you compare it with last year, Sooryavanshi clocked Rs 26 cr+ on Day 1, despite 50% occupancy in Maharashtra, while Ram Setu and Thank God could not collect Rs 26 crores combined on Day 1, despite the big Diwali holiday.”

According to Taran, this clearly indicates that something is going wrong somewhere. “Ideally, an event film would have taken a very big start, say a Pathaan or Tiger 3, but neither Ram Setu nor Thank God were promoted aggressively as big films prior to the release, despite starring A-list actors. Why didn’t the producers or actors promote their films as aggressively, this question can be best answered by them, but aggressive promotion would’ve ensured better results during the festive period because both films have merits, they are not bad films. Despite the Diwali holidays, the collections continue to go down day by day which clearly indicates that the trend is not too strong for both the films. Now all eyes are on Rohit Shetty’s Cirkus, which arrives this Christmas. Hopefully, this one should bring the audience back in large numbers.”

Girish Johar, producer and trade analyst feels the word of mouth for both films was weak. “Both Ram Setu and Thank God have underperformed at the Diwali 2022 Box Office. Surprisingly, neither was promoted aggressively by their makers. That insecurity of its makers also rubbed of onto the audiences. Also an early mid-week release to encash on the holidays will help but after the first weekend the films may crash out…So eventually, in the long run, they may have weak legs at the boxoffice. Also, the word-of-mouth for both the films was mixed, which give them both little chances to recover. It’s one of the lowest DIWALI BOX OFFICE for Hindi Cinema Ever, till date.”

Suman Sinha, a prominent exhibitor of Bihar says, “Ye jo public hai sab janti hai! I strongly feel the recent movies have have taken away the sheen of Akshay. That’s why people have become indifferent to him and his movies. They have realised there won’t be anything new, so why invest. Akshay doesn’t have a brand value anymore. Same is true of Sidharth Malhotra, whose Thank God is struggling for survival.”

Kishan Damani, a leading film distributor of Bihar, thinks Akshay Kumar has lost his fan base. “Akshay Kumar has lost his popularity. He is doing so many movies without selecting any scripts judiciously… Seems he is just running behind money at the moment. Both the Diwali movies have disappointed the audience. None of them had the pull to get the audiences flocking into the theatres. Diwali has not been the same for the movie business after Sooryavanshi, which recorded far better collections during Covid with 50% occupancy only .”

Trade analyst Amod Mehra has even harsher words for both films. “Diwali is a time when the family gathers to celebrate and share happiness.. not discuss / preach /advocate death. That  too treat the death of a young man as a joke. Obviously, Thank God got rejected .Akshay is the top HERO who charges 90 crores for a film. So the audience will come to see his heroic works, not pay to get educated about our religion like Ram Setu does, Both films were wrong Diwali releases and they deserved to FLOP.”

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.