Mumbai : Karan Johar Homebound flop was evident as Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor’s starrer finally hit theatres on Friday, Sep 26. Despite being India’s official Oscars entry, the drama received a limited number of screens, struggling to attract audiences.
Not just that, it also failed to attract the audience to the theatres, given that small numbers of cinema goers, whoever went, appreciated Karan Johar’s project wholeheartedly
During an exclusive conversation with IANS, film critic and journalist Ramachandran Srinivasan said, “India has chosen Homebound as its official entry for the Oscars. What do you think about the perception that audiences are sidelining it in India?”
Reacting to this, he stated that the short duration of “Homebound” could be a major reason why the film did not get a positive response in India.
“When you say a film like Homebound runs for one hour and four minutes, and censorship trims it to just about one hour and two minutes, the question arises—why would I spend the same money watching such a film when I could watch a full-fledged entertainer in theatres? That possibly explains why audiences did not widely welcome Homebound at home,” he said.
Commenting on whether there was enough of a campaign to create awareness for “Homebound”, Ramachandran shared, “Multiplexes, which are the primary target for a film like this, need programmers who allocate screens based on buzz and box office performance.”
“Early shows collected around seventy-five lakhs, which made programmers hesitate.” They’d rather back a film that fills theatres than one that has just a handful of viewers”, he added.
“They further questioned him about why a film like Lunchbox worked well internationally without big stars and why Homebound didn’t achieve similar success.”
To this, he pointed out that “Lunchbox” did well in both India and abroad.
However, “Homebound” has performed weaker internationally than domestically.
“That’s possibly why it has not lived up to expectations both at home and outside. But that doesn’t mean filmmakers get discouraged. Every film has its own destiny. The real challenge is awareness—when audiences don’t even know a film is releasing amidst so many web shows and movies, how will they come to theatres?”, he concluded.
–IANS
