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Ramramesh Side Hero Username: Ramramesh Post Number: 4867 Registered: 03-2014 Posted From: 158.140.1.28 Rating: N/A |
It’s been a slow year financially for Indian cinema, with box-office watchers waiting until late May for romcom sequel Tanu Weds Manu Returns to finally break the 100-crore mark ($15.7m) for local films. Unexpectedly, it’s the Telugu industry – generally a notch down on takings from Bollywood – that has provided the first true barnstormer of 2015, in the shape of SS Rajamouli’s epic saga of a deposed king, Baahubali. Being touted as the most expensive Indian film ever certainly didn’t dampen its prospects (though the $40m budget was technically split over two parts), and early reports suggest it has monstered the 108-crore ($17m) debut weekend record set last Diwali by Shah Rukh Khan’s Happy New Year. Friday and Saturday saw takings for Baahubali (also filmed in Tamil, and dubbed into Hindi and Malayalam) in the order of 135 crore, and a Hindustan Times piece has pegged the whole weekend at 165 crore ($26m). Worldwide figures aren’t yet available, but it took $3m in the US, within a whisker of the $3.5m for Aamir Khan’s religious satire PK, the highest-grossing Indian film worldwide. So Baahubali should have placed in the vicinity of sixth or seventh on the global chart, minimum. Most heartening is that Rajamouli’s film was warmly reviewed: the Guardian called it “a near-perfect balance between physicality and poetics”, and Times of India said “the larger-than-life execution matches [Rajamouli’s] grandiose vision”. So, in contrast to the likes of Happy New Year – which the old Bollywood razzle-dazzle routine couldn’t prevent from dropping off embarrassingly – Baahubali has a shot at setting a box-office record for the ages. Or at least until part two, next year. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jul/13/global-box-offic e-baahubali-minions-mad-max-fury-road |