Kurbaan could be Karan Johar's first FLOP

Kurbaan could be Karan Johar's first flop

Aminah Sheikh / Mumbai November 22, 2009, 0:59 IST

Box Office: Tum Mile, Kurbaan flop; D3 advancing

Friday, November 20, 2009
The controversial muslim actor Emraan Hashmi who is busy denying his family's links in support to Lashkar and other terrorist groups and who had earlier made controversial statements about Hindus, has found out that may have been a bad idea as there is not much of an audience or a grosser without the Hindus in India. Infact the majority of people of India have this time punctuated that point by preferring the American disaster-themed film 2012, which too has some Indian characters, over Bollywood's Bhatt-Hashmi disaster flick Tum Mile being offered at the same time. The box office collection gap between 2012 and Tum Mile is over 4:1. In other words, it's not even close. The opening last Friday was just a dismal 20% on low volumes and it simply has been going downhill from there.

A similar problem is facing Kareena and Saif Ali Khan's Kurbaan, which was earlier said to be named Jihad. Despite much hype over the Karan Johar backed flick about a Delhi punjabi woman Avantika Ahuja and her muslim terrorist lover Ehsaan Khan, featuring flaunted sex scenes between Kareena and Saif Ali Khan, this film isn't exactly doing a number on the box office, as evidenced through its weak screenings early on Thursday and Friday. From the advance itself it was clear Bombay opening records were not in jeopardy. But Friday actual box office is painting a worse prognosis for the film. That this Karan Johar film could actually be heading to be a box office flop, making it the first flop of the filmmaker's career. Though discerning box office observers are aware his directorial KANK in 2006 too witnessed a massive crash after opening.

Qurbaan has been allocated lots of screenings because of the banner. Wake Up Sid earlier in the year had been a mild success at the multiplexes. However Karan Johar name too is going to take a beating after this. The Friday opening in the multiplexes where it was expected to fare best, was only about 35-40%. Of course that's better than Tum Mile, but far below expectations and much below what's necessary for this expensively shot overseas film which is said to have cost between 50-60 crores. Speaking of overseas, overseas the film may fare better with the India, Pakistan, former East Pakistan ie Banglades diaspora which may be more eager for these topics and castings about Islam and Global Terrorism. In India however, despite sex scenes being flaunted, with 26/11 being near, people are more concerend and angry about their own national security breach last year, if anything else. The single screen response to Kurbaan has been dismal with opening collections as low as 10% in centers like Bharuch, while being just about ok to poor in the multiplex centers. So in short, unless all India collections show a big turnaround, this Karan Johar fare on terrorism with the cast of Saif Khan and real life beau Kareena is about to be a major box office failure of the year. The failure of Qurbaan would be further bad news for Karan Johar's next Shahrukh Khan venture on roughly similar setup, My Name is Khan, which too is set in America along similar themes.

One Khan actor who has been able to pull it off by playing it down the middle politically and on more nationalistic themes to his box office advantage has been Aamir Khan, whose Ghajini is a bigger hit than any Saif Al Khan-Shah Rukh Khan-Karan Johar-Aditya Chopra hit of the decade and whose next 3 Idiots too is expected to take a solid opening. Starting from cross-border infiltration hit film Sarfarosh in 1999, Aamir Khan has had very few flops in India over the last 10 years. 3 Idiots too is based on the culture of one of India's most prized institutions, the IITs, arguably partly responsible for India emerging a technologically advanced nuclear power by the 1990s.


However in the immediate short term, the movie that may actually do what all these films are aspiring for is Priyadarshan's De Dhana Dhan. This film's opening next Friday is expected to be one of the biggest this year as it brings back Katrina Kaif to Akshay Kumar along with Sunil Shetty and Paresh Rawal under Priyadarshan. This crew has delivered some of the biggest comic hits this decade in India, led by the Hera Pheri series.

This is so sad I hope the collections pick up soon

It can very well be if people watched movies with the philosphy that it makes some sense but here people watch movies as a pass/fun time so I doubt it will.

Originally posted by: divyalrl

This is so sad I hope the collections pick up soon

THAT article was from ibos site right..i didn't post it coz people consider tht site fake here😆

Oh i din't know yaar just came across the article thought of posting it

But How can they say its his first Flop Kaal was a Flop too right ?
vivek was also in that one i think so...

Originally posted by: divyalrl

Oh i din't know yaar just came across the article thought of posting it

ya when i posted the same news on dil bole hadippa being a FLOP people called it a fake site...😆 but it can't be ignored tht kurbaan is coming close to a FLOP and dbh was flopped either

Well firstly the timing was WRONG so stupid of Karan to release a movie about terrorism near 26/11 either it has a positive message or not.

Secondly, Karan should start making nonsensical movies like APKGZ and KI because apparently the junta likes crap movies like that.

Sadly, no one likes facing the reality these days and one rather go to a theatre to watch a faltoo movie for time pass.

Originally posted by: Human_Torch

ya when i posted the same news on dil bole hadippa being a FLOP people called it a fake site...😆 but it can't be ignored tht kurbaan is coming close to a FLOP and dbh was flopped either

DBH was a average thats what i think but in CNN IBn they called it a FLOP i think i saw that filmi fiscal show every week they declare which are the hits and which are the flops