Unfortunately, no release dates were announced at the Tudum event. While every other show or movie got a new official teaser, Monica, O My Darling got a music video. If I had to bet, that’s the one I’d pick as next to release. Here are all of the shows that got new promo material:
In other Netflix news, @CinemaRareIN on Twitter found a bunch of other UTV titles set to expire from Netflix on October 1 beyond the initial list I posted on September 2. The new batch makes a total of 28 titles on their way out in the next week. Update your watch priorities accordingly.
Here are all the additional titles expiring from Netflix October 1, with titles I’ve reviewed at the top followed by other titles in alphabetical order:
I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with more than fifty Indian titles that are now available for streaming. Most of the new films are in Hindi (23 titles), Punjabi (22), or Tamil (7), with one new addition each in Marathi and Bengali (as well as one Urdu movie from Pakistan). The full list of titles is available in the “Newly Added” section at the top of my Netflix page. Here are all of the Bollywood films that were just added:
Update: Thanks to my Twitter pal Gaurav for letting me know that Fanney Khan debuts on Amazon Prime on October 12, and Sanju hits Netflix on October 15.
Director Imtiaz Ali’s Jab Harry Met Sejal fared very well during an otherwise lousy weekend at the North American box office. From August 4-6, 2017, Jab Harry Met Sejal earned $1,279,586 from 280 theaters ($4,570 average). That’s the third best opening weekend total for a Bollywood movie in North America this year, behind Baahubali 2 and Raees. Those three titles also happen to be the only 2017 releases to earn more than $1 million in their opening weekends here. Canada contributed nearly 20% of the total earnings for the weekend from less than 10% of the total theaters. Canadian per-theater averages were more than double those of theaters in the United States: $9,485 in Canada versus $4,067 in the US.
Mubarakan also performed well in its second weekend of release, holding on to 43% of its opening weekend business (the fifth best performance this year, in that category). Mubarakan earned $131,319 from 148 theaters ($887 average; adjusted average of $1,026 from 128 theaters*), bringing its total earnings to $620,627 — doubling its opening weekend total of $305,449 in just ten days.
Nine theaters in the US held special showings of Baahubali 2 on Saturday night to celebrate the film’s hundredth day of release. With tickets priced at $1, those showings took in $1,001 — bumping Baahubali 2‘s North American total across all languages to $20,792,334. (In case you missed my post from yesterday, Baahubali 2 is now available on Netflix in the US and Canada!)
Other Hindi movies still in US theaters:
Mom: Week 5; $1,234 from three theaters; $411 average; $607,473 total
Munna Michael: Week 3; $89 from one theater; $105,532 total
Jagga Jasoos: Week 4; $88 from one theater; $859,773 total
*Bollywood Hungama frequently counts Canadian theaters twice in when they report figures for a film’s first few weeks of release. When possible, I verify theater counts at Box Office Mojo, but I use Bollywood Hungama as my primary source because they provide a comprehensive and consistent — if flawed — data set.
Mubarakan turned in a fine opening weekend performance at the North American box office. During the weekend of July 28-30, 2017, the comedy earned $305,449 from 148 theaters ($2,064 average; adjusted average of $2,386 from 128 theaters*). While those numbers aren’t flashy, they’re still better than the opening weekend figures of two other 2017 releases with similar theatrical footprints: OK Jaanu ($211,660 from 136 theaters) and Half Girlfriend ($238,001 from 127 theaters).
Other Hindi movies still in theaters (until SRK’s Jab Harry Met Sejal boots them out on Friday):
Jagga Jasoos: Week 3; $19,246 from 31 theaters; $621 average; $853,806 total
Mom: Week 4; $8,645 from nine theaters; $961 average; $602,255 total
Munna Michael: Week 2; $5,835 from 17 theaters; $343 average; $103,887 total
*Bollywood Hungama frequently counts Canadian theaters twice in when they report figures for a film’s first few weeks of release. When possible, I verify theater counts at Box Office Mojo, but I use Bollywood Hungama as my primary source because they provide a comprehensive and consistent — if flawed — data set.
The new comedy Mubarakan — which brings Anil Kapoor and his nephew Arjun together onscreen for the first time — opens in Chicago area theaters on July 28, 2017.
Munna Michael gets a second week at MovieMax and the South Barrington 24. Mom carries over for a fourth week at the South Barrington 24 and Woodridge 18, which also holds over Jagga Jasoos.
Other Indian movies showing in the Chicago area this weekend:
Is it time to question Tiger Shroff’s potential to be star who can carry films internationally? Shroff’s fourth film, the dance flick Munna Michael, went all but unnoticed in its opening weekend in North America. From July 21-23, 2017, Munna Michael earned $64,756 from 73 theaters, averaging $887 per theater. His previous low opening weekend average was $1,360 for last year’s underrated superhero comedy A Flying Jatt, which opened in about the same number of theaters (79). Shroff’s combined total North American earnings for all four of his movies are $744,105.
On the plus side for Shroff, his upcoming projects are more traditional action films, including a sequel to his most successful movie, Baaghi (which earned $437,243 here), as well as a potentially disastrous Rambo remake. Then again, how many fans will be drawn in simply by the genre and not because Shroff’s name is on the marquee?
In its second weekend, Jagga Jasoos earned $117,736 from 106 theaters ($1,111 average), bringing its total to $788,777.
Mom closed out its third weekend with $27,297 from 22 theaters ($1,241 average), for total earnings of $579,077. Also in its third weekend of release, Guest Iin London earned $167 from three theaters ($56 average), bringing its total to $50,813.
One new Bollywood movie gets a limited release in the Chicago area on July 21, 2017. Munna Michael stars Tiger Shroff as a dancer who teaches a gangster (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) how to cut a rug.
Jagga Jasoos is an ambitious movie that I’d love to rate more highly. There were portions of the film that I liked very much, and I appreciate the world director Anurag Basu built and the way he told his story. Yet Jagga Jasoos is bloated with material and far too long.
Jagga Jasoos opens with a framing device featuring Katrina Kaif’s character Shruti as a children’s entertainer and author of a comic book series about her friend Jagga, a teenage detective. A troop of kids under her direction reenact scenes from the comics, before the action transitions to the world of the books, starting with Jagga’s childhood and his adoption by a man he calls TutiFuti (Saswata Chatterjee, best known to Bollywood fans for playing the unassuming assassin Bob Biswas in Kahaani).
TutiFuti coaches young Jagga to sing as a way to overcome the boy’s stutter, a device that enables Jagga Jasoos to be a traditional musical, with much of the plot and dialogue sung rather than spoken. The movie is punctuated by standalone tunes to accompany dance numbers and montages, with the best of those songs being the forlorn “Phir Wahi.”
TutiFuti is called away on a secret mission by a man known as Blackmail Sinha (Shaurab Shukla), leaving Jagga to grow up alone in a boarding school. By the time he reaches his teenage years, Jagga (now played by Ranbir Kapoor) has developed a knack for solving mysteries.
He stumbles onto an arms-smuggling caper with international implications, involving a journalist — Shruti — and possibly even TutiFuti. Shruti and Jagga travel to Africa to find TutiFuti and uncover the secret mission he’s been on for so many years.
The whimsy factor is high in Jagga Jasoos, not only because of all the singing but because of a visual style reminiscent of director Wes Anderson (whom Jagga Jasoos cinematographer Ravi Varman praises in the Scroll.in interview linked to below). Basu incorporates a number of comparatively low-tech special effects — such as deliberately using obvious stock footage of African animals or showing a plane flying over a map instead of actual land — for a fresh take on retro movie-making. The modern CGI effects that aim for realism and fall short draw more attention to themselves than effects that are intentionally outmoded.
Jagga Jasoos is at its best when Jagga and Shruti are together in his hometown along the border with Myanmar. The town and school have their own charms that help to create an immersive environment. When the duo leave town, they leave that quaintness behind for a plot that is grander in scale but less engrossing.
Removing geographical boundaries frees Basu to inject untold (and unnecessary) amounts of quirkiness into the film, particularly regarding the unseen criminal mastermind Bashir Alexander. By the time Jagga and Shruti board Bashir Alexander’s personal circus train, I had reached my limit.
Disney India would’ve been better off splitting its swan song into two films, a la Baahubali, rather than making one film to serve as both a setup for a hopeful sequel and a catch-all in case box office numbers deem a sequel unwarranted. Forcing Basu to cram as many ideas as possible into one film not only inflates the runtime beyond a reasonable limit, but it cuts short plot development in favor of visual spectacle. I’m still not sure what Blackmail Sinha’s goal was or who he was working for, and the framing device isn’t well explained either. Shruti’s students sing a song about not caring about the world’s troubles because they are protected by a “sign on the door,” but it’s unclear to what they refer.
For all its ambition and innovative ideas, Jagga Jasoos isn’t the movie — or movies — it could have been.
Things didn’t go so well for Jagga Jasoos in North America. From July 14-16, 2017, it earned $482,887 from 210 theaters ($2,299 average). That average barely puts it in the top half of Hindi films for the year here, just behind Tubelight, which was also considered a disappointment. Still, Jagga Jasoos‘s total was good enough to rank in 15th place at the overall US box office for the weekend, and its per-theater average was better than the averages of the movies ranked 8th-14th.
There are numerous reasons to explain why Jagga Jasoos wasn’t a blockbuster here, from the movie’s unique concept to it being a family oriented film opening during peak season for big-budget superhero flicks and animated fare. Jagga Jasoos‘s earnings fall within the expected parameters for recent films featuring its two stars. It earned more than Ranbir Kapoor’s Bombay Velvet in its first weekend but less than his Tamasha; it earned more than Katrina Kaif’s Fitoor but less than her Baar Baar Dekho.
Mom held up great in its second weekend in theaters, retaining nearly 40% of its opening weekend audience. It earned $99,535 from 63 theaters ($1,580 average), bringing its total to $493,245 — already nearly double its opening weekend total of $260,433.
Guest Iin London fared much worse, losing 85% of its opening weekend audience and taking in $4,494 from eight theaters ($562 average). Its total stands at $49,161.
Tubelight closed out its fourth weekend in theaters with earnings of just $200 — $138 from one Canadian theater and $62 from one theater in the US. It has total earnings of $1,575,849.
Disney India’s final production, Jagga Jasoos, opens in the Chicago area on July 14, 2017. Director Anurag Basu’s detective film reunites former lovers Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif onscreen.
Mom carries over for a second week at MovieMax Cinemas in Niles, River East 21, Cantera 17, Woodridge 18, and South Barrington 24, which also holds over Guest Iin London.
On Saturday night at 7 p.m., MovieMax hosts a live broadcast of the 2017 IIFA Awards.
Other Indian movies showing in the Chicago area over the weekend:
