‘Captain America’ vs ‘Mah-e-Mir’: The real war

After receiving strong openings, films battle it out on the Pakistani box office

KARACHI: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice may have failed to match its hype but Captain America: Civil War has definitely wiped the disappointment clean. Released on 68 screens across Pakistan, the third installment in the Captain America franchise managed to earn approximately Rs31 million in its first two days. However, the superhero flick wasn’t the only movie that graced screens over the weekend with the Pakistani film Mah-e-Mir also premiering on May 6.

Confirming the figures to The Express Tribune, marketing and distribution manager of IMGC Entertainment, Ahsan Khalil remarked that Captain America: Civil War was well on its way to minting Rs50 million during its opening weekend. “This shouldn’t come as a surprise as Captain America 3 is like a combination of different superhero movies such as Iron Man and Spider-Man because of which it managed to do well in Pakistan,” he said.



General expectations were high with Captain America, but initially, the same could not have been said for Mah-e-Mir. Movie-goers didn’t think that the Fahad Mustafa and Iman Ali starrer would be able to offer much of a fight to Captain America and his team of Avengers, but surprisingly, the movie still managed to hold its own. The film managed to rake in approximately Rs9.5 million during its two opening days. According to Vice President of Eveready Pictures (distributors of Mah-e-Mir), Zain Wali, it was heartening to see how the film was able to sustain in the face of tough competition. “The movie earned between Rs3.5-4 million on the opening day (Friday), whereas business picked up on Saturday with collections of a little over Rs5 million. The performance is picking up gradually,” he shared.

Having said that, will Mah-e-Mir be able to keep the momentum in the coming weeks? “Only if allotted the right shows,” answered Wali. “Rather than increasing the number of shows, it would be better if Mah-e-Mir got primetime screenings,” he said.

It is pertinent to note that the Pakistani film has so far only done well in multiplexes whereas Captain America: Civil War has put on a solid show on single screens as well. Khalil added that the movie’s Hindi-dubbed versions had been doing exceptionally well in local cinemas as well. This makes Mah-e-Mir’s innings on the single screens even shorter especially with the release of mainstream Bollywood films like Azhar in sight.

“Fast and Furious 7 was the last Hollywood movie to have its local dubbed version do so well in single screen cinemas,” explained director of Capri Cinema, Farrukh Rauf. “Captain America: Civil War has been screening at optimum capacity at Capri Cinema with occupancy of 70-80%, which is really high for an international film. As for Mah-e-Mir, it is an art film – it was never going to perform exceptionally in the single screen cinema circuit.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 10^th, 2016.

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