I don’t believe that “good movies” do well, and “bad movies” don’t. For every film that’s praised to the skies, there will be detractors, and vice versa. What happens — and this is what I believe — is that a movie creates a certain momentum, based on word of mouth or hype or whatever mystifying factor there is, and this momentum spreads and makes people say they want to go watch it.
So this is not about Sardar 2 being a “good” or “bad” movie. Despite the eventual rejection, Vikram’s three-hour Cobra made some 12 crore on Day 1. Despite the eventual rejection, Thug Life made some 13 crore on Day 1. And despite the eventual rejection, Toxic made over 100 crore on Day 1.
So despite Part 1 being a hit, why did Sardar 2 never even take off? I can understand a two-digit opening, and then the film being rejected (for whatever reasons). But this did not even open!
Two questions here.
One is why Sardar 2 was rejected outright, when films with far more negative reviews have gone on to make decent first-day numbers? (I know no one knows the real answer, otherwise you’d be making millions giving Kollywood advice on whether a film will work or not. I am just asking for your theroies.)
And two, with the exception of Sardar, has the ‘desi version of Hollywood spy template ever worked?
Yes, it worked big time when masala elements were added, like in the Dhoom movies (which had songs and romance and sentiment and comedy) — though in Tamil, a Vikram bombed. But the same Yash Raj has been unable to see success with films like Alpha, where the storytelling is less masala-fied, more streamlined and one-note, like in Hollywood.
Has the strategy of dubbing English films in local languages made people not want to see local variations of the same thing? This used to be done earlier, too, but now, the dubbed versions were released in bad theatres. Now, the dubbed versions play in super prints everywhere.
Thoughts?