There are at least five Hindi releases on November 11, including Rock On!! 2, two Hollywood films and a few language titles. One film has bowed out of the race, and its producers have found the perfect excuse: demonetisation.
“We are very much pleased with Mr. Narendra Modi’s step towards demonetization of 500 and 1000 currency notes, and hence our team has decided that the movie should be postponed as we do not want the audiences to spend their money behind watching a movie this weekend,” said producer Goutam Jain in a press release. “I want people to spend money on basic necessities as of now rather than incurring in other expenses.”
That’s a roundabout way of saying that there is very little buzz around Saansein. The horror film, starring Sonarika Bhadoria as a shape-shifting singer and Rajniesh Duggal as the man who woos her, would have struggled to get a respectable number of screens if it had been out on schedule. The sudden and temporary lack of spending capacity among audiences would have further diminished the movie’s already low chances.
The Centre’s decision to withdraw Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from circulation has had the expected short-term effects: cinema chains are likely to take a hit, while daily wager junior artists and technicians working in film productions and television serials will not be paid for the next few days. Potential moviegoers are thinking twice about spending their precious currency on a potentially disappointing movie – and that’s not a bad thing at all.
