Salman Khan’s movie “Jai Ho” has been panned by critics. Anupama Verma asked rhetorically “Is Jai Ho even a film?” Sukanya Verma of Rediff was also unforgiving: “Jai Ho: Salman is let down by Sohail Khan’s uninspiring direction” it said.
The opening figures also tell the story. The collections were a measly Rs. 17.5 crore on the opening day. The film was released in 4,400 screens across the country and recorded occupancy of only 40-50% which is much below the average occupancy for a Salman Khan film.
Apart from poor direction and screenplay, what compounded the problem was the “boycott Salman Khan” call by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi in retaliation of Salman hobnobbing with Narendra Modi. The Times reported that fans felt ‘betrayed‘ with Salman Khan’s ‘kite flying antics‘. “Any Muslim joining Modi is condemnable. Any fair-minded person would not have done it” a Muslim youth was quoted as saying.
Now this spells doom for Eros International which bought the rights to Jai Ho for a whopping Rs 120 crore. Eros has recovered a part of the cost by selling the satellite rights for Rs 50 crore and the music rights to T-series for Rs 10 crore. The deficit is Rs 60 crore which will have to be collected at the box office. Obviously, the collections will have to be much more given that the cinema owners will have to be paid their share.
Eros’ shareholders will not be amused. Since the stock was listed in October 2010, the stock has lost 12%. In the last one year, it has lost 15% and severely underperformed the index.
Sohail Khan and Salman Khan are, however, laughing their way to the Bank. Sohail made the Jai Ho for Rs. 90 crore of which Salman Khan received a fee of Rs 30 crore. The deal with Eros has ensured that they made a cool profit from the film.
Leave a Reply