Ash’s Jazbaa hits movie screens

Audiences last saw Aishwariya Rai-Bachchan’s Sofia D’Souza in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Guzarish back in 2010. The former Miss World returns to celluloid this Friday in Sanjay Gupta’s action thriller Jazbaa, playing the lead alongside Irrfan Khan. The film is a remake of Korean film Seven Days (2007), which had a successful run at the movies. While there is palpable anticipation for the movie, Bollywood has not seen mixed responses to female actors’ comeback film. Sridevi’s English Vinglish (2012) hit the right notes and saw success at the box office, not only in India, but also overseas. However, films like Dangerous Ishq (Karisma Kapoor), Aaja Nachle! and Gulaab Gang (Madhuri Dixit) failed to make a mark.

Suniel Wadha, independent distributor and box office analyst, feels the main issue is the lack of womencentric scripts thus far and identifying the niche that such scripts would occupy. In addition, the costing of such films need to be done keeping in mind the size of this target group and the pockets the audience resides in. “The challenge is that woman-oriented films don’t always have mass audience appeal. They, however, do well at multiplexes which end up contributing more than 70 per cent of the business for these movies. Sridevi’s English Vinglish was a huge success at the multiplexes too,” he explains.

English Vinglish, co-produced by R Balki and Eros International, collected ~40 crore (net after tax). However, the film was made at a budget of ~15 crore, which meant that the producers made significant profits.