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The month of August has been huge! One big film after another arrived one week after another. It's time for the last biggie of the month: SATYAGRAHA!
SATYAGRAHA has a huge star cast: Ajay Devgan, Amitabh Bachchan, Arjun Rampal, Kareena Kapoor, and Manoj Bajpai. Also, the film is directed by Prakash Jha, who has directed some appreciated films, most notably the 2010 big hit RAJNEETI.
So, will SATYAGRAHA work at the box office?
Looking at the trailer of the film, the film seems like a rehash of Prakash Jha's last few films such as RAJNEETI, ARAKSHAN, and CHAKRAVYUH. Sure, Prakash Jha's forumula worked big time with RAJNEETI in 2010, but it has become stale and boring for the public since then, and it showed with both ARAKSHAN and CHAKRAVUH bombing at the box office.
There has been news going around of SATYAGRAHA being "RAJNEETI 2", but even with that news, I still don't have much expectations from SATYAGRAHA at the box office. The film seems to be quite low on entertainment!
To make matters worse, almost everyone associated with the film has been going through a bad phase lately. Director Prakash Jha's last two films (CHAKRAVYUH and ARAKSHAN) bombed at the box office. The actor in the film who holds the most star power today out of the star cast, Ajay Devgan, has been going through a rough patch as well with his last big film HIMMATWALA bombing at the box office. Amitabh Bachchan, who we all know as one of the all-time greats in Bollywood, no longer holds the star power now at his age, as evidenced by his recent films like DEPARTMENT and ARAKSHAN sinking without a trace at the box office. Kareena Kapoor has also lost steam with her recent films TALAASH, HEROINE, AGENT VINOD, and EK MAIN AUR EK TU being a mixed variety with some of these films doing just moderately well and the other ones failing. Arjun Rampal's D-DAY failed badly. Manoj Bhajpai has been doing well for himself, but he is not a crowd-pulling name.
The opening of the film will be just about okay at best. The starcast may ensure a decent opening, but with the biggest star in the film (Ajay Devgan's) last film HIMMATWALA doing so poorly at the box office it will cause a problem for the opening of SATYAGRAHA. In the past, it has been seen that negativity of one film affects the actor's next film. Hritikh Roshan's GUZAARISH, despite some good reviews, was affected partly by the disasterous fate of his prior film KITES. Akshay Kumar's PATIALA HOUSE which saw some decent reviews, was partly affected by the huge negativity generated by TEES MAAR KHAN. A similar scenario will happen here with the negativity of HIMMATWALA affecting SATYAGRAHA.
Another similarily I may add is that KITES, TEES MAAR KHAN, and HIMMATWALA were much-hyped biggies that fell on their faces. The next films of the respective actors, GUZAARISH and PATIALA HOUSE had decent reviews but also seemed dull for the masses at the same time which was also a problem. Similarily, after HIMMATWALA fell flat, SATYAGRAHA seems dull for the general public and will likely follow the PATIALA HOUSE/GUZAARISH path. An observation I made!
My Box Office Predictions for SATYAGRAHA:
Opening Day: 6 crores net
Opening Weekend: 20+ crores net
Lifetime Collections: 35+ crores net
Overall Box Office Verdict: Flop
Anupamaa
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