Update of Bollywood movies in 1st Quarter of 2016

2015 was not a good year for Bollywood in terms of business. Compared to that the beginning of 2016 was quite better with few good quality movies including a 100cr hit.Lets have a quick recap of the first three months of 2016.

January

The month began with Amitabh Bachhan and Farhan Akhtar starer thriller #Wazir which had been directed by Bejoy Nambiar and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. It had a gripping story with some solid performances by the whole cast lead by Big B and Farhan Akhtar. This emotional story of two friends connected very well with the audiences and it got a good opening with around 29cr collection in first week and 42cr in its lifetime, which is good enough to call it an average earner.

It was followed by the biggest hit of the year so far #Airlift featuring Akshay Kumar in the lead. It was based on the real life incident of the biggest human evacuation from Kuwait to India during the period of Pre-Gulf war when Iraq had attacked on Kuwait. It was a proud moment for Indian cinema when the glorious but almost forgotten story of Indian history was showcased in a Bollywood movie.This film had been promoted very well and also it had been released during the long weekend of Republic Day so it got good opening and became one of the biggest openers of Akshay Kumar’s career  with 44cr collection in its first weekend and 83cr collection in its first week. It continued doing good business at ticket windows even after first week because of the good word of mouth publicity which helped it to enter in 100cr club with around 127 cr collection in its lifetime.

Another well made film of this month was the last release of this month #SaalaKhadoos which was about an aspiring woman boxer and her coach. It was a wonderful story about the victory of an underdog which had been presented very well by the debutante director Sudha kangra. In lead roles Madhavan and Ritika Singh were perfect. But due to lack of star presence and weak promotion it could not make that big at the box office and flopped at the box office with just 15cr lifetime collection.

Another highlight of this month was two back to back sleazy adult comedies #KyaKoolHaiHum3 and #Mastizaade. Co-incidentally both featured Tussar Kapoor in the lead. The first one was the third installement of #KyaKoolHaiHum series produced by Balaji Films, which had been marketed as India’s first Porn-com. The second one was just an extended skin show of Sunny Leone with a boring and mindless story. Both the movies were very vulgar and tasteless which provided only sex no comedy. Thankfully both the movies were rejected at the box office which is enough to ensure that such cheap movies have not any bright future at the box office. Hopefully no filmmaker will invest money in such movies in near future.

February

The month of February started with Sunny Deol’s comeback film #GhayalOnceAgain. It was a routine 90’s film which has nothing new to offer except for some solid action sequences which helped it to earn around 36cr at the box office which was not good enough to call it a hit but still it was better than expected.

February is also the month of Valentines so there were three romantic movies featuring young couples which got released in three consecutive weeks. These movies were #SanamTeriKasam, #SanamRe, #Loveshuda. All these movies had almost fresh cast in the lead with good music but unfortunately none of them worked at the box office. Among them at least #SanamRe was an average earner with 30cr collection that too because of the hit music which gave it a good opening. Among the crowd of love stories of young couple there was yet another love story in the competition that was Abhishek Kapoor directed #Fitoor featuring Aditya Roy Kapoor and Katrina Kaif in the lead. People had some high hopes with

this movie because of the successful director associated with it but this film flopped badly at the box office because of its slow pace and not so good performances by the leading cast.

Finally in the third week came the second biggest hit of the quarter #Neerja. After #Airlift it was yet another story based on real life event of a brave Indian girl who had saved the life of more than 300 passengers when the plane was hijacked where she was a flight attendant. Sonam Kapoor had played the title role wonderfully delivering her career best performance. Due to lack of big star power this film got an average opening with around 22cr in its first weekend and 35cr in its first week. But its collections kept growing with every coming day because of the good word of mouth publicity and positive reviews. As a result it kept doing good business at the box office even in its 4^th and 5^th week which is very rare now a day. That helped it to earn around 75cr collection in its lifetime.

This movie was followed by two small movies #Aligarh and #TereBinLadenDeadOrAlive. Both the film flopped at the box office but #Aligarh got good reviews for its bold subject and good performances by Manoj Bajpayee and Rajkumar Rao.

March

The beginning of the month was very bad when highly expected film #JaiGangaajal could not perform as expected at the box office. There were high hopes with this Prakash Jha directed film featuring Priyanka Chopra in the leading role of a daredevil Cop. But the response from audience was disappointing. It was followed by Himesh Reshamiya starer box office disaster #TeraSuroor.

Finally on the third week of this month came the big release of this month

#KapoorAndSons, a film about family bonding produced by Karan Johar and featuring the trio of latest heartthrobs Fawad Khan, Siddharth Malhotra and Alia Bhatt. They had been joined by the veteran actors Rishi Kapoor, Rajat Kapoor and Ratna Pathak Shah. Because of the popular star cast and catchy music it got good opening with around 26cr collections in its first weekend. Later its collection kept doing well because of the good feedback from both audiences and critics. That helped the film to earn around 47cr in its first weekend and more than 65cr till second week. It is still doing good business at the box office. 
The last release of this month was John Abraham starer action packed film #RockyHandsome. It was decent entertainer with its superb action sequences. At the box office it got mixed opening and could not do anything big at the box office.

Overall the first quarter was quite impressive with some really good movies doing well at the box office too. There are some biggies in the second half too including SRK starer #Fan. We are hoping for even better Q2.

Best Film of Q1 2016

• Airlift
• Saala Khadoos
• Neerja
• Kapoor & Sons

Best Director of Q1 2016

• Raja Krishna Menon - Airlift
• Sudha Kongara - Saala Khadoos
• Ram Madhvani - Neerja
• Hanshal Mehta - Aligarh
• Shakun Batra - Kapoor & Sons

Best Actor of Q1 2016

• Amitabh Bachchan - Wazir
• Farhan Akhtar - Wazir
• Akshay Kumar - Airlift
• R. Madhavan - Saala Khadoos
• Manoj Bajpayee - Aligarh
• Fawad Khan - Kapoor & Sons
• Rajkumar Rao - Aligarh
• Prakash Jha - Jai Gangaajal
• Rishi Kapoor - Kapoor & Sons
• Rajat Kapoor - Kapoor & Sons

Best Actress of Q1 2016

• Ritika Singh - Saala Khadoos
• Sonam Kapoor - Neerja
• Aditi Rao Hydari - Wazir
• Nimrat Kaur - Airlift
• Shabana Azmi - Neerja
• Ratna Pathak Shah - Kapoor & Sons
• Alia Bhatt - Kapoor & Sons

Top Songs of Q1 2016

• Tere Bin - Wazir
• De Di, Soch Na Sake - Airlift
• Sanam Re, Gazab Ka Hai Ye Din - Sanam Re
• Kheech Meri Photo - Sanam Teri Kasam
• Kar Gayee Chul - Kapoor & Sons