The first quarter of 2019 saw some unpredictable super hits and super flops. A very surprising blockbuster comes from director Aditya Dhar in the Vicky Kaushal starrer URI: The Surgical Strike. The movie that has some wonderful sound effects and cinematography is completely shouldered by the actor who previously played a supporting role in Sanju. In fact, Uri is now considered to be among the top 10 Hindi movies of all time, having only an investment of 45 CR and the bumper harvest of 240+ CR. Next best of the quarter is Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy, having only one solo star, Ranveer Singh, and the story revolves around rap music. It turned out to be a super hit of 2019 with a budget of only 75 CR but managed a collection of more than 200+ CR worldwide. Another small-budget movie that had the audiences amazed was Badla. The strong storyline and the previous hit jodi of Taapsee Pannu with Amitabh Bachchan from Pink turned out to be a super-duper success. The women-oriented movie was one of the first of its kind and was well received by the audience. The cost was barely 10 CR, but they managed to recover 76+ CR, which is a fantastic return on the investment.
It is said by some that whatever Rajinikanth touches turns into gold; that’s what has happened to Petta too, which the 2.0 actor stars in. Petta is now one of the highest-grossing movies, with a collection of 250+ CR. Movies like Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, which was critically acclaimed and had a lot of hype around it but didn’t do as well as expected at the box office. The Kangana starrer, having a strong storyline and a budget of 101 CR, had a worldwide collection of 152 CR; hence, it is considered to be average cinema. The film didn’t gather much support from the industry and fans, maybe due to it being a historical film, but Akshay Kumar’s starrer Kesari, which is also historical, at the cost of 80 crores, managed to make around 125 crores till now and is considered to be a hit. The movie is running in packed houses and is expected to cross 200 CR. In spite of having a multi-mega-star cast like Madhuri Dixit, Anil Kapoor, and Ajay Devgn, Total Dhamaal is a flop with a collection of only 150 crores.
Small-budget movies like Sushant Singh Rajput-starrer Sonchiriya and Kartik Aaryan-starrer Luka Chuppi have done better than big-budget movies this quarter. Last week of this quarter seems to have had a bonanza of six new movies have released this Friday (29/3/19) Junglee, Notebook, Gone Kesh, Tennis Buddies, Railway Raju, and Ram Ki Janmabhoomi. Vidyut Jammwal-starrer Junglee is doing well with a collection of 3.35 crores on the opening weekend. Three lead actors, namely Anil Kapoor, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and Arshad Warsi, have had 2 releases each, whereas among actresses, only Divya Dutta has had more than one release. Pranutan Bahl and Zaheer Iqbal made their debuts in this quarter. To sum up the first quarter, 49 Hindi movies were released, of which 5 were hits and 6 were flops. Besides having an excellent lineup of star casts and big budgets, the genres of all the movies have been varied. The surprise package is URI, which is a blockbuster and has made the cash registers ring for producers and distributors, and the fact that needs to be acknowledged is that only good content is the king in today’s time of cinema, which can really rake in the moolah. Scriptwriters can happily now sing Apna Time Aa Gaya (Our Time Has Come )!!
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