Box-office blues: Why Ek Chatur Naar, Love in Vietnam, Heer Express turned out to be disasters?

Small-scale films Ek Chatur Naar, Love in Vietnam, Heer Express, Mannu Kya Karega and Jugnuma flopped at the box office. Trade experts blamed poor marketing, lack of visibility and weak content for the dismal collections, leading to cancelled shows nationwide

Mumbai: Not all Fridays are hunky-dory at the box office, some of them can send shivers down the spine of producers.

This Friday saw the release of many small-scale films like Ek Chatur Naar, Love in Vietnam, Heer Express, Mannu Kya Karega and Jugnuma – The Fable. All of them turned out to be commercial duds.

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Movie trade expert Girish Wankhede unpacked the reasons behind the failures of these films as he spoke with IANS. Generally, a smaller film suffers at the box office if it clashes with a bigger film or a tentpole.

But when films of similar scale release at the box office and still don’t make the cut, there is a problem.

Girish Wankhede said, “These five films turned out to be a complete washout at the box office. If I share the numbers, Ek Chatur Naar collected around INR 50 lacs, Love in Vietnam grossed INR 6 lacs, Mannu Kya Karega settled at INR 45 lacs, Jugnuma INR 5 lacs, and Heer Express INR 55 lacs. In many places, the shows were cancelled simply because there was no audience.”

He blamed the poor marketing strategies of these films and said they didn’t generate significant buzz to attract people to theatres.

He further mentioned, “The primary reason is that there was no marketing for these films. There was no buzz, no visibility. If you ask a common man, no one even knows that a film called Heer Express or Jugnuma or Ek Chatur Naar has been released. Without marketing and visibility, how will the audience come to theatres?”

He also shared that the content of these films is weak in addition to poor marketing strategies. If the content was powerful, these films would have had box office mileage.

He said, “Neither the content was strong nor the marketing effective. If the content had been good, reviews would have reflected that. If the film had something powerful, it would have spread through word of mouth. But when both the content and marketing are poor, disaster is inevitable.”