Saturday, December 29, 2012

Dabangg 2: First Week Nett Collections

By Anant Mathur (December 29, 2012)
 
Dabangg 2 marks the return of Salman Khan and Chulbul Pandey. Needless to say, the films has started off with a bang collecting Rs. 21.10 crores on Opening Day (Dec 21) and breaking all records for a non-holiday opening. On Saturday, Day 2, it collected Rs. 19.06 crores. And on Sunday the total for Day 3 was Rs. 25.00 crores, bringing the weekend total to Rs. 65.16 crores nett, a new record for a normal 3 day weekend and beating the previous 3 day weekend record set by Salman's own Ek Tha Tiger. During the next 4 days Dabangg 2 added another Rs. 41.62 crores (Mon 12 cr, Tue 15.5 cr, Wed 8.12 cr, Thu 6 cr) to its weekend total becoming the 5th Salman Khan starrer to join the Rs. 100 crores nett collection club. 

In total Dabangg 2 has collected Rs. 106.78 crores nett in the first week (a normal seven day week and not a extended week as films are accustomed to these days) and set a new record for a normal 7 day week.

© Anant Mathur. All Rights Reserved.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Dabangg 2 Shatters Opening Day Record!

By Anant Mathur (December 22, 2012)
 
Good new the world didn't end yesterday. But there is some earth shattering news... Salman Khan and Sonakshi Sinha starrer Dabangg 2 released yesterday and the opening day collections are earth shattering to say the least. Dabangg 2 opened on a non-holiday weekend and has shattered the record by collecting Rs. 21.10 crores on its first day of release. Rowdy Rathore held the record for non-holiday opening at Rs. 15.10 crores, Dabangg 2 has managed to surpass it by an incredible Rs. 6 crores. Earlier in the year Salman Khan starrer Ek Tha Tiger had the biggest holiday opening in history at Rs. 32.93 crores.

© Anant Mathur. All Rights Reserved.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

The End of the World??

By Anant Mathur (December 16, 2012)

As you may have heard according to the Mayan calendar life on earth as we know it is supposed to end on 12.21.12 (December 21, 2012) - Hey, that's just next week. If you speak to people who believe in prophecies and world ending events - they're are convinced that the world will end next week. But speak to any scientist and people who are in the know and they will tell you nothing will happen. 

I am convinced that it will be exactly like the Y2K threat when nothing happened. I just feel sorry for the people who spent thousands of dollars buying things to protect themselves including survival shelters.

All you need to know is, in case of an apocalypse, the governments of the world probably have plans in place. If it were to ever happen I hope the government is going to save those who can help rebuild like scientists, doctors, architects, farmers, teachers, manual laborers and soldiers, etc. - we won't need to save politicians, actors, lawyers and entertainers or people from the service industry or anyone with a desk job.

Chances are the world won't end next week and I'll have to figure out a way to pay-off the Ferrari I bought knowing full well that I can't afford it - but if the world is ending I want to class-it-up and enjoy life as much as possible before I go. I'm fairly certain that, like me, most people will be with their family and closest friends on this day. And if you're really bored you can go and watch Dabanng 2 which releases on 12.21.12.

What I'm hoping for from the Mayan prediction is that there is sort of a cleansing of our mind, so that all evil is out of everyone's thinking and the world is a better place come December 22, 2012. And we'll live in a society where we don't have to worry about crime and everyone helps their fellow man/woman is kindness is the new religion. It's probably wishfull thinking but who knows that December 22 holds, chances are nothing will happen but if it does, wouldn't it be nice if things could improve instead of ending...

© Anant Mathur. All Rights Reserved.


DISCLAIMER: The above post is meant for entertainment purposes only; readers shouldn't take it seriously or interpret it as advice.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Tip # 41: Greed

By Anant Mathur (December 05, 2012)

Most young writers forget that the whole process of writing should be a learning experience. If you only write about what you know and your characters have the same characteristics and behavior patterns as yourself, you won't be able to write more than two screenplays in your life.

As a writer each character you create should be as different from you and as different from each other as apples are from zucchini. When you write a character you must know everything about him/her - where they were born, family history, illnesses in the family, scars, personality, education, etc. etc. Even if it's not part of the story you're writing, it is very important to know exactly where your character is coming from so they can relate better to each other and in case you write a sequel you have something to fall back on. As an example you can watch Back To The Future to see how characters were created with enough backstory so when it came time to do sequels (which there were no plans of making) they had no difficulty writing parts 2 and 3. If the writers didn't create solid characters with a rich background it would've been very difficult to write the sequels let alone tell a solid story.

In the relaunch of the Star Trek movie franchise, there is a large part of the plot which is based on the Kobayashi Maru test - for those of you who are unfamiliar with this test - it was actually first mentioned in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in the original film series. The new Star Trek would've been a totally different film if there were no mention of Kobayashi Maru in the original series. The writers of the new film did their research and due to the efforts of the backstory put together by the writers of the previous series they were able to tell their own story and paid homage to the old one.

What I really notice with today's generation of writers, especially in Bollywood, is that they get very greedy with a joke. They're so busy trying to come up with the perfect punchline that they don't realize that they've revealed a part of the story during the joke which shouldn't be revealed 'till later on. I know it's the season of comedies in Bollywood, but one must remember that you can hit the punchline without revealing your story, the problem is no one seems to care and this is why a film fails to find an audience. The same is true for mysteries, writers are so greedy about adding twist after twist that the audience figures out the story in the first 10 minutes and the rest of the film is just dull and boring. The best mysteries are the ones which take you on a ride and have one twist at the end - no one likes to be on a journey with a thousand stops. A good example is the film Saw, while watching it you have no clue where it is headed, and then at the end... BOOM! There is a wicked twist which makes you say "that was incredible".

It's not difficult to write a story, but it is very difficult to write a great story, primarily because of the greed that most writers today suffer from. If a writer can put aside the idea of writing a hilarious comedy and just writer a story with funny situations and interesting characters he will find that he has, in fact, created a hilarious comedy. But when you set out to write a hilarious comedy you're so preoccupied with the perfect punchline that you forget about where the story is headed and end up with a horrible story. A great story can only go in a limited number of directions but when it gets pulled into unfathomable situations that's when you lose your audience. Your audience will forget and forgive a bad joke in a great story but they will never forgive or forget a bad story even if it had great punchlines...

© Anant Mathur. All Rights Reserved.