Main Vaapas Aaunga has scored big at the box office after its initial lackluster opening day collections, and here, producer Shibasish Sarkar speaks about how things turned in favour of the movie.
Main Vaapas Aaunga was written off initially. But it’s having a great turnaround post release. What exactly worked for the film?
Let me start with what didn’t work initially. First credit goes to Imtiaz who has made a fantastic film. The irony was that, in spite of Imtiaz making a good film and we starting the marketing two months in advance, virtually 10-12 days before its release, we could see that there wasn’t enough buzz. Even on the week of release we took a chance and we opened the film for public screening from Monday. I remember on that Monday, Imtiaz, Mohit (Chaudhary, producer) and the cast were in Delhi. They did six shows that night. I did three shows in Mumbai. On Tuesday, I did a show in Hyderabad with Telugu celebrities and on the following day in Kolkata with Bengali celebrities. Imtiaz came back on Wednesday and did the media screening and then the industry screening, premiere etc. The objective was to show the film to as many people before so that word of mouth can spread. All of that resulted in an opening of one crore. That means irrespective of whatever we may discuss or defend, the fact of the matter was that it was a glorious disaster of our marketing. The audience didn’t turn up.
He continues…
With that kind of opening you get into depression. But credit to all of us that we sat down in the first half of the day and we decided to meet the audience in theatres at the end of the show. It all started as an instinct. We felt it was a good film, so let’s see what the audience thinks about it. It started in a humble manner. The kind of response that Imtiaz got from people sharing what they felt about the film and sharing their stories, made us visit more theatres. So far, four weeks since its release, Imtiaz, Mohit and I have visited 60-70 theatres. Every evening, it was a ritual. The next day we’d decide where do we go next and land up there and listen to the audience. It is the audience response getting captured on social media, and all of that was from heart, nothing was designed, spread word of mouth. It uplifted us a bit.
We changed the track on Tuesday. Because of the discount ticket pricing on Tuesdays, a large sample of audience comes to theatres. So, while Monday was holding, Tuesday turned the track.
We covered Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Indore, Delhi twice, Chandigarh twice, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Jaipur, Kolkata. There’s still a plan to go to Hyderabad and once again to Delhi. So, what became as one moment, it became a momentum that the maker and the audience are talking about their impression of the film. Generally, 2-3 days post-release, the director and actors move on from the film. But we went on for four to five weeks. We must have met more than 15,000 people during these theatre visits. Their reactions were so natural and straight from the heart.
Did you push social media marketing post release?
No, we didn’t. We didn’t take the influencer route. There was no spend on social media marketing. It was all organic. Honestly, we also didn’t think it would happen like that. Every night we used to visit 3-4 theatres irrespective of weather conditions as it was raining heavily for some days. We were not thinking about it as marketing. We wanted to see the reactions. We didn’t announce that we would be visiting theatres. We announced only when we were travelling outstation. Imtiaz has said quite a few times that the audience has taken the movie forward. I’ve never seen it happen in my career. Credit to Imtiaz for making a fantastic film and credit to him and the team—all of us—that we didn’t leave the film. We’re still not giving up.
How did Imtiaz Ali react to the one crore opening?
Honestly, all of us were depressed. But we were shocked because in the pre-release screenings, about 2000 people must have seen the film and their reactions were strong. So, we had conviction about the film. But the numbers were staring back at us. So, we started meeting the audience. But we didn’t realise that it will become an organic marketing tool.
Why was Diljit Dosanjh not part of marketing?
Diljit was not part of the marketing neither pre nor post-release, because he was doing his concert. To be fair to him, he told us 5-6 months prior that if we were releasing the film in June, he wouldn’t be available. Sharvari and Vedang Raina did whatever they could pre-release. Post-release, Vedang came for one or two visits. Ultimately, film is a director’s medium. So, the director going and meeting the audience and asking how they feel about the film was very pure. So, the reactions were without any filter. The conversations varied town to town.
It was a great learning for us to meet the audience directly. Most makers leave the film soon after its release. Secondly, the release slate of Main Vaapas Aaunga, it was so crowded. Varun Dhawan’s film released a week before that. 7 films were released on the same day as Main Vaapas Aaunga including Bharat Bhagya Vidhata, Governor, Haunted 3D, Obsession, Backrooms, and Disclosure Day. Next week came Cocktail 2, a week later came Welcome to the Jungle, then Alpha and now Dhamaal 4. So, every week there’s a competition for the screens. But the film found its audience.