Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi Box Office: 5 Reasons Why Sonakshi Sinha's Film is Finding It Difficult to Match The Success of the First Movie

When Happy Bhag Jayegi came out in 2016, it was riding on very fewer expectations. With no major stars in the cast and no OTT promotions, no one expected the film to work at the box office. But it did and Happy Bhag Jayegi turned out to be the sleeper hit of the year. Despite its flaws, audiences found its humour to be refreshing, while also appreciating the performances of the cast. Two years later, we have a sequel to a movie, no one thought would work in the first place. Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi retained most of the main cast members from the original, except for Abhay Deol (who rather chose to be in the terrible Nanu Ki Janu than be in this).

And like the rule of any Bollywood sequel, they replace the main lead of the film with a supposedly bigger star. So Sonakshi Sinha is now the face of the sequel, while Diana Penty, the lead of the first film, is relegated to a glorified cameo. So have the cosmetic changes worked in the favour of the film?

Well, as per the latest update given by trade analyst, Taran Adarsh, Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi has collected Rs 16.96 crore. He tweeted, "#HappyPhirrBhagJayegi witnesses a noticeable drop on Wed... Fri 2.70 cr, Sat 4.03 cr, Sun 5.05 cr, Mon 2.05 cr, Tue 1.71 cr, Wed 1.42 cr. Total: ₹ 16.96 cr. India biz.". While it may be too early to call HPBJ a disappointment, we have to mention here that it might be difficult for the sequel to catch up to the lifetime box office collections of the first film (Rs 28.82 crore as per Bollywood Hungama).

And there are some big roadblocks on the way, of which we have mentioned the five major ones below.

The budget

The first film was reportedly made on a budget of Rs 20 crore, and therefore was deemed profitable with its lifetime collections. The sequel is touted to be made on a budget of Rs 29 crore, and therefore needs to make around Rs 40 crore to be called profitable. The path ahead is difficult mainly due to the below reason.

Crowded release schedule

There can be no worse time for Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi to release that during the very crowded August and September, where there are so many clashes. The movie comes a week after the famous clash of Akshay Kumar's Gold and John Abraham's Satyameva Jayate. And both the movies, despite the big stars in the lead and gaining a holiday advantage, had to face some struggle at the box office. HPBJ had released along with Utkarsh Sharma's Genius, which was a non-starter, and yet couldn't take advantage of this. This week, there are two more major releases in Bollywood with Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor's Stree and the Deols' Yamla Pagla Deewana Phir Se. So yeah, this is definitely a major roadblock for Happy's box office progress.

The lack of surprise factor

Like I mentioned before, the first film came out with no frills attached and then surprised the audiences with its Basu Chatterjee-like humour and interesting plot. So it gained the advantage of word-of-mouth publicity and had steady box office progress.  However, the sequel arrives with expectations that it couldn't completely live up to, the reasons for which we have given in the sections ahead.

Inconsistent humour

Save for a droll climax, Happy Bhag Jayegi was consistently funny throughout with a surprisingly subversive romantic plot. Here, the main driving plot is ridiculous, to say the least. What saves the sequel is the humour, mostly courtesy a terrific Jimmy Sheirgill and Piyush Mishra. However, the gags get stretched too often to cross the limits of endurance, especially in the second and the third acts. In short, Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi isn't as funny as we expected it to be, despite some hilarious jokes.

More mixed reviews

Mainly, due to the reason mentioned in the previous section, HPBJ got more mixed reviews compared to its predecessor. Unless your movie stars a Salman Khan, Tiger Shroff or a Varun Dhawan, it is difficult to get ahead whe the first steps are so muddled.

Still, fingers crossed that Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi undermines our predictions and manages to make itself profitable. There is a heart in the film and the performances are consistently good. That said, it is surely a mammoth task to do so for the film.

Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi is directed by Mudassar Aziz and produced by Aanand L Rai. The movie also stars Jassi Gill, Ali Fazal, Jason Tham and Denzil Smith.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 30, 2018 04:40 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).