Cinema owners will have to create enough hype around the film for the recall value to work in their favour. PHOTOS: FILE
The Sanjay Leela Bhansali film starring Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwariya Rai-Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit, is being imported by Distribution Club (previously known as IMGC Entertainment).
“We wanted to screen Devdas as it is considered a hallmark film of Bollywood cinema,” Sabeena Islam, the marketing manager of Distribution Club told The Express Tribune
Nadeem Mandviwalla, the managing director of Mandviwalla Entertainment, seconded this, saying, “It is a very good film to import in Pakistan because first of all it is an iconic film and secondly, a lot of people have never seen the movie in cinemas.”
He further added that Devdas is not the only iconic film that was being imported to the country as there are “at least two to four films more like these that we can at least attempt to screen in the country.” One of them is Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, which will also be releasing soon.
Apart from the cult status of the film, Sabina also believes that this was the ideal time to release it. “Ongoing cricket world cup has impacted the box office collections and I believe cinemas can recover money by screening old classics like these,” she said.
Mandviwalla, who is also importing another Bollywood classic, Sholay, spoke of how these movies tend to create a “recall value” amongst audiences and it was necessary that cinema owners and distributors do not promote and market them the same way as a normal film.
“You need to look at these films differently. It would be wrong to have very high expectations from a film which is being re-released in Pakistan. You should not expect back to back housefulls and at the same time you cannot market it like a regular film,” stated the Mandviwalla.
To a question about whether such movies would fare better in single screen cinemas in comparison to multiplexes Mandviwalla replied with a “No” reasoning that audiences that go to see movies in single screen cinemas tend to be “cost effective” and “would not re-watch a movie that they have previously seen on DVD at home.”
Not everyone though seems to be sharing the same excitement in regards to the release of Devdas.
Yasir Jaswal, the director of Jalaibee, whose film will be releasing on March 20 said, “As a film director, I am unaffected by the release of this film and even as an audience member it, does not excite me either as almost everyone in Pakistan has seen this film either on television or DVD.”
According to the director, it would have been better to screen an old Pakistani film instead of releasing a movie like Devdas, which almost everyone has seen.
“If they (exhibitors) did want to release an old film, they should have released a Pakistani classic like Aina. We should show classics from Pakistani cinema as many people have not seen such movies. Everyone has seen Devdas I’ve seen it five to six times,” remarked Jaswal.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 13th, 2015.
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