My Name Is Khan: Losing lustre in the very first week

It came into the battle field like a brave Gladiator, but now its condition is like Gone-with-the-Wind (not like the movie of course!). Being pitted with the brilliant 3 Idiots, which has broken all the previous box office records, My Name Is Khan has started huffing & puffing within 4-5 days of release.Many single screen theatres which saw a full occupancy during the first weekend, are now almost empty.

‘There is a huge fall in ‘My Name Is Khan’ ticket sales. While it was just 30 percent Wednesday, it is only 20 percent Thursday. The film is not being appreciated because of the content,’ said Amit Awasthi, manager (programming and operations) of Spice Cinemas.In fact people have started saying that, this ‘SRK-Kajol’ starrer is a big time bore, and it has zero entertainment value, and that is why people are staying away from it.’The entertainment aspect in the movie is zero. Thought is has some emotions, there is nothing much to offer,’ added Mr. Awasthi.

As the stats goes, the normal occupancy in multiplexes are 20%-30%, where as the PVR are noticing only 50% foot falls now. In fact they havestarted saying that the movie the movie will run, at max, for one more week only.’Our occupancy has fallen from around 90 percent to 50 percent Monday onwards because of the content of the movie. We are guessing it will stretch to one week more,’ said the source.

Many distributors are saying that it’s another ‘Kurbaan’ from K Jo camp. It has less entertainment value for the youngsters, who want to see entertaining movies on the big screen, rather than an inspirational & subtle love story. All thanks to 3 Idiots, the youngsters want a fun loving, bright and entertainingmovie.

But there are some people, who think that MNIK is the movie of SRK-Kajol, the most successful pair in our country, and it will speed up in the next weekend.

‘Footfalls for ‘My Name Is Khan’ have fallen but the weekend is expected to be good. The occupancy at present is about 30 percent which is decent enough considering it is a working week and that there are close to 12-14 shows per day across different properties for themovie. The movie will sustain business and occupancy will be close to 70-80 percent over the weekend. ‘said Yogesh Raizada, corporate head (cinemas) of Wave Cinemas.