Why ELKDTAL didn't work at the BO?

I'd really appreciate it if this topic didn't turn in to a bashing thread. I am fully aware of Sonam's limited acting abilities but I really expected a lot from this movie, perhaps because it reminded me of the 90s/early 00s - the desi feel with innocent romance. I knew it wasn't a love story between Rajkumar & Sonam - tbf their scenes looked unappealing anyway in the trailers. Boy meets girl blah blah.

Anyway, the film got very decent reviews, mostly 3-3.5 stars if I'm not wrong. My biggest issue was the extra unnecessary characters taking up space when they should've shown the love story between Sweety & Kuhu. I think the writers were conflicted in what they want to show. They injected with comedy and characters which didn't really add much to the main plot because they seemed to have been too scared to build on the foundation of the love story. But would the metro audience be that unaccepting?
The first half was totally wasted on the hetero guy trying to find the homo girl - why did it matter?
I personally don't think the audience would've minded seeing an innocent love story develop between the girls. Anyone who has seen the movie would know whatever little we did see of them was very old-school and uncontroversial. All they needed to add is a few more conversations and emotional bonding and it would've helped the whole coming out' impact. I think they chickened out in fear of any backlash but they lost out on something they could've sold to the audience in a more compelling way.

Also, I have a crush on Regina Cassandra. She's so beautiful, seems like a confident performer but she wasn't even given a chance to perform.

P.S. Please keep the topic clean. It wasn't a bad film, it just missed the mark I felt.

Originally posted by: 2RsFan

Cos India is homophobic

But there wasn't anything in the movie to make them cringe or unsettle them? They focused it more on the family drama than the homosexual dynamic.

I have noticed people don't like to watch a lot of movies at once due to different reasons such as not wanting to spend money again on movie or they already watched a movie and don't feel to watch another and so on. People want to take a break for at least few weeks before watching another movie. So URI was just released and Manikarnika too. Both made lots of money especially URI. Most likely didn't want to watch another movie. Also, other one of main reason is probably because of homophobia.

Lack of promotions. Lack of assertive advertising. Trying to disguise it as a het love story. Is India homophobic? Yes. But most of the mainstream audience didnt even know when the movie released or anything about the movie.

1) 0 Star power.

Actually true about the promotion. They only came out to promote it in the last week before it's release. If you looked at the trailers without thinking too much it would just look like a regular rom-com. They didn't actually try to sell the USP.

Homophobia is everywhere, I know largely in India but like I said the metro cities wouldn't really have that issue as such. Smaller towns I can understand...

instead of sonam some big name, and story should have more deep with layers..

The movie didn't get a good WOM. Now that can be because of the subject, or maybe it was really a bad film as the reviews suggest. Audience are kinda open to these type of taboo subjects. That Shakti show about transgenders was a TRP topper once upon a time(another thing that the show made a joke out of transgenders). Maybe Bollywood should start with Bisexuals, showing a love triangle, so that audience also gets a "traditional" couple romance. But the thing is, will any director take on this subject atleast for next 5 years, now that this film has flopped badly.

India not ready yet for this. Especially girls.