January Becoming A Very Good Period For Releases
Thursday 16 January 2020 15.30 ISTBox Office India Trade Network
There has been a tendency to keep away from the early January release date but actually its a good time to release and can give good collections for the right content. The scenario was that there would be a Christmas release and then the next big film would come on Republic Day Week in the last week of January.
The industry has woken up to the New Years Date which was total no no till last year and it was difficult to understand why. Obviously the success of Simmba and Good Newwz has changed this. It may be cold in the North but that can be the case on December as well. It was probably more of a superstition than anything else as the first releases of the year tended not to do well but mainly because they were not really major releases.
Now the need is to also ensure that this second week of January is also filled up with a good release as it may not have a huge national holiday but it is a good period of 2-3 days and more depending on when the weekend falls. There is Makar Sankrati, Lohri, Oman and Pongal falling in this week, the latter may mean competition from South films in South but last year Uri - The Surgical Strike had strong figures in South despite the competition and then went on to do close to record numbers for a Hindi film in South despite strong local films.
The Gujarat / Saurashtra belt is best in Makar Sankrati outside the Diwali week and though that did show with Uri - The Surgical strike as they film was not strong there it is showing with Tanhaji - The Unsung Warrior which is outstanding on the weekdays.
If we look at the runs of films like 3 Idiots, PK, Dangal and Tiger Zinda Hai then they took in Xmas week, New Years week and Makar Sankrati week without any major competition so the business they did was not just about Xmas but the open period till January end. This led to one film getting the best out of a fruitful period when if there were more major releases then the business of these films may have been less but overall the period would have given more.
The second week of January will benefit the wider film more as the holiday period is bigger in Hindi circuits just like Xmas week is bigger in the metros but it basically means there should be four major release form Xmas till Republic Day. One on Xmas, then one on New Year, then on Makar Sankrati and then finally Republic Day. The six week period from 20th Dec till Jan end can easily dish out around 1000 crore if the four films are good. This does not been the four films will total 1000 crore but the period with all releases.
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