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While Pathaan's box office run gave Bollywood pundits much to cheer at the start of 2023, the industry's performance in February has dampened the celebrations. Two major films, Shehzada and Selfiee, have bombed at the box office, and the less said about the month's other smaller releases, the better. Let's instead discuss these two biggies and why they haven't worked with audiences. Selfiee Movie Review: Akshay Kumar-Emraan Hashmi’s Remake of Driving Licence Falls Short of Passing the Test With Flying Colours.
Of course, no one expected Shehzada or Selfiee to win over the critics, as Kartik Aaryan and Akshay Kumar have demonstrated in the past. However, their recent releases not only earned critical disdain but also failed to draw in the audiences. Shehzada fared better in comparison, earning Rs 20.20 crore in its first weekend and a total of Rs 26 crore.
Selfiee's performance, simply put, was terrible for a film that had Akshay Kumar in the lead and backed by major studios, one of them being Karan Johar's Dharma Productions. It only earned Rs 10.30 crore at the box office, and its performance is unlikely to improve in the coming days.
Interestingly, both films are remakes of popular South films. Shehzada is the remake of Telugu blockbuster Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, starring Allu Arjun in the lead. Selfiee is a remake of the Malayalam hit Driving Licence, which starred Prithviraj Sukumaran (who is also one of the producers of Selfiee). So, are audiences getting sick of remakes?
Remaking Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo - Not Smart!
For one thing, in the case of Shehzada, it was never a wise decision to remake a recent film that is quite popular among audiences, with many Hindi viewers having seen the original during the pandemic-induced OTT lockdown. Pushpa's phenomenal success in North India encouraged many non-Telugu viewers to check out Allu Arjun's recent films, with Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo frequently coming out as a strong recommendation. Shehzada Ending Explained: Here's How the Climax of the Kartik Aaryan-Starrer Deviates From Allu Arjun's Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo.
Selfiee cannot claim this as a reason. While Driving Licence is a critical and commercial success, the Malayalam film has not achieved the level of awareness among non-Mallu viewers that an Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo has managed.
First Impression Still Matters!
Shehzada and Selfiee both suffered from mediocre promotional material that failed to generate enough buzz for their respective films. Whatever your thoughts are on Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, the first trailer, along with the recreated version of the title track, generated enough positive buzz for the film. Shehzada's trailers and songs simply did not generate that level of excitement, and it was instead compared to its original film Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, and Kartik with Allu Arjun. People quickly pointed out that Kartik lacked the showy charisma of the Telugu Superstar, which is required for a film like Shehzada to connect with audiences. The songs' mediocre reception also hurt the film, as Shehzada lacked a hit track like "Butta Bomma" from Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo. Even a reprised version of "Character Dheela" (from Salman Khan's Ready) fell short of expectations.
Selfiee, to be honest, had a decent trailer but for a comedy, it wasn't just amusing enough. Except for that Meghna Malik's 'volume badhao' joke, the rest of the trailer just passed muster. The song, which featured Mrunal Thakur (in a cameo role), did generate some buzz, but mostly for the actress' hot looks, with many on social media commenting on how strange Akshay looked romancing a two-decade younger actress.
Even the recreated version of "Main Khiladi Tu Anari," like with Shehzada, did not work in its favour.
Word-of Mouth
When your films didn't manage that pre-release hype well, then the one way to go is to create hype post release. For some reason, certain production companies see it this way by, err... rewarding influencers and critics who say good things about the film. The easier way would have been to make a good film and rely on word-of-mouth to do the rest. Unfortunately, Selfiee and Shehzada were unable to get people to rave about their content. Shehzada Movie Review: Kartik Aaryan and Kriti Sanon's Remake of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo is a Joyless Facsimile.
Selfiee fared better in terms of reviews, but it performed worse than Shehzada. What the general consensus was for both the film is that they were inferior replicas of the original, and that simply shows on the screen, whether you have seen the original or not.
Shehzada, as the trailers suggested, lacked the X-factor that Allu Arjun brought to the original. The spark that Trivikram Srinivas' exuberant handling provided for Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo is missing from Rohit Dhawan's flat direction. Shehzada came across as a lazily written, kitschy family drama with spurts of boring action scenes in the absence of the necessary positives. The film also fails to improve on the flaws of the original, such as developing an effective part for the female lead, instead wasting Kriti Sanon in a thankless role.
Similarly, Selfiee did not explore what made Driving Licence work so well as a film. Instead of making the film's central ego battle between a superstar and his enraged fan nearly equally-contested, Selfiee turns itself into what can be perceived as a product that exists solely to exonerate and venerate its main lead, Akshay Kumar (who TBH is quite good in the role). Even if you haven't seen the original, this narrative deviation strips the film of its wicked zing of a flawed superstar and turns the 'fan' character into the piece's moronic villain. As a result, the remake suffers.
Over-Exposure
This is more of a point for Akshay Kumar than for his younger colleague. The rate at which the National Award winner is churning out films is quite alarming, and it has an effect on the quality of the movies. Interestingly, Akshay has always been a star who released multiple films in a year, which has also resulted in the actor having a winning streak at the box office in the not-too-distant past. So what happened now? After the pandemic, it appears that viewers have grown tired of the type of fare that Akshay is bringing out with his films, especially when they are exposed to how South cinema has handled masala fare better than most of Bollywood.
Not to mention, Akshay's political stance is not popular among social media users. His right-wing supporters may hail the actor on social media, but for reasons best known to them, they are not translating their support into theatre attendance. I am not in a position to advise a seasoned performer like Akshay Kumar, but he would benefit greatly from being more selective about his films, avoiding remakes for a while, and not viewing his upcoming projects as mere money-making ventures.
Are Audiences Tired of Remakes?
The failures of Shehzada and Selfiee may suggest this, but don't forget that Ajay Devgn scored a huge hit with Drishyam 2 just a few months ago. Why Kartik Aaryan's Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 - another big hit in 2022 - was heavily influenced by the Thai horror film Alone, which was remade in Bollywood with the same name. So the issue isn't with the remake formula. I could argue that the aforementioned hits benefited from being part of a successful franchise. However, the failures of films such as Rock On 2 and Kahaani 2 have demonstrated that this is not always the case.
Instead, what works is creating the right hype and the right product that pleases the audience, even if you won't please the critics. Selfiee and Shehzada do that job half-heartedly. It is not that they are remaking popular movies but they are not bringing anything new in the process, and instead appear inferior.
Just look at how Ajay Devgn is promoting his remake of the Tamil hit Kaithi. When it comes to what Ajay wants to show the audience through the promos, Bholaa has shown a notable deviation from the original source since the first teaser. While the final product may or may not be good, there is no doubt that the actor-director has added an eye-catching personality to his remake with stunning action scenes and fascinating imagery. That is precisely what Shehzada and Selfiee were unable to accomplish.
Pathaan Factor
People were quick to blame Pathaan for greedily eating into Shehzada's pie when Shehzada failed to bring in the much-needed initial. Many people accused YRF's Rs 110 ticket pricing for Pathaan on the same day Shehzada was released, for the latter's low opening. This is simply illogical reasoning. What YRF did was a way for Pathaan to sustain its box office run in the wake of a new big release (let's not forget Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania also released that very Friday and ate into Shehzada's collections). If Shehzada had been able to generate a positive buzz, it would have easily brushed aside Pathaan's dwindling competition.
Instead, Shehzada and now Selfiee's box office failures benefitted Pathaan who is now going to beat Baahubali 2 to be the highest grossing film in India in Hindi language (at the time of writing this article). Thanks to Pathaan, there is a joke going around that other films and their lead stars are asking the boycott brigade to 'hate' their movie and generate buzz. The question now is, was that really a "joke"? Perhaps bad films need to get people to hate and boycott them before they are released in order to do well at the box office. Or, as Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 did, package its mediocre content in such a way that viewers are enticed enough to walk into theatres, much like a Venus flytrap. There is just no middle way!
(The opinions expressed in the above article are of the author and do not reflect the stand or position of LatestLY.)
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 01, 2023 06:13 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
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