Our apologies if you found the title twist a bit cheeky but then we couldn’t resist with so much hype around the 2 major releases tomorrow. Also a brave adjective before the movie Animal is apt having seen its promos, the controversies of its director’s debut movie and the new avatars of seasoned leading actors of the movie. But that’s not the agenda today. Today, we are here to share some subjective and objective analyses of these movies before the D-day tomorrow.
Let’s begin with some data points till now, bulleted below for convenience.
Production Budget - Animal’s budget is roughly around 100 Cr while that of Sam Bahadur is around 55 Cr.
Screen Distribution - Animal is supposedly hitting around 4000+ screens in India tomorrow while Sam Bahadur is releasing in around 1800 screens.
Advance Booking - Animal’s advance booking has reached a staggering number of 17+ Cr (roughly 5.75 lakh tickets sold) while that of Sam Bahadur is 1.8 Cr (around 58k tickets sold)
Multi-lingual Release - While Sam Bahadur is releasing only in Hindi, Animal is releasing in other regional languages too like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.
Trailer Buzz - Here again Animal is overpowering Sam Bahadur in terms of numbers. The teaser of Animal had around 55 Million views on Youtube in comparison to 29 Million of Sam Bahadur. The power-packed trailer of Animal seemed to hit the Bull’s eye and has left audience wanting for more. It has reached 76 Million views. Sam Bahadur’s trailer in isolation did well too and has 39 Million views.
So the data definitely is tilting the balance towards Animal at least for the opening weekend. But Sam Bahadur’s teaser and trailer have impressed the audience too and since it is based on a patriotic theme the engagement will be for a wider audience. So it won’t be a surprise if it picks up gradually. Having said that let’s have a look at some not so objective data points.
Star Cast - Ranbir Kapoor starring in a movie would have been a big factor in around 2011-12 when he reached his stardom peak in the times of Rockstar, Barfi. Is it a factor in this movie? A resounding Yes!! More so because of the way he has been handled by the Director Sandeep Reddy Vanga. In comparison to Vicky Kaushal, he has a better worldwide reach too. Along with him, the trailer of Animal has unearthed hidden fans of Bobby Deol. So, expect the Star factor to tilt the balance heavily towards Animal.
Director - Sandeep Reddy Vanga is 1 Movie old in Bollywood ( Kabir Singh ) which was a remake of his own Telugu movie Arjun Reddy. But that 1 movie was enough to establish himself in the industry. Though marked with controversies, the eventual box office results showed that the audience connected with his movies. Sam Bahadur’s director Meghna Gulzar on other hand is not a newbie. She is known for handling serious subjects in graceful manner and has earned accolades for most of her works, Talvar, Raazi and Chhapaak being most popular. Hence in terms of Director, it looks like to be even. So expect both the movies to highly engage their respective audiences.
Story Theme - This is contrasting for both movies. Sam Bahadur is a biopic of Sam Manekshaw, former Chief of Army Staff for Indian Army, who has been an inspiration to many across his career at Indian Army. While Animal is being portrayed as a violent crime movie with a deep emotional thread of a Father-Son relationship tied to it. Patriotic Movies have done exceedingly well in recent times and that might give an edge to Sam Bahadur in terms of reaching to a wider category of audience. But the response of Animal’s trailer suggests that the audience have already made a connect with the movie. Unless the subject is not handled properly through the film, it seems to be an equal competitor in terms of the story line.
Movies clashing on one day is not a new thing. We had the famous Lagaan vs Gadar debate couple of decades back and eventually both turned out to be the winners. Let’s hope the same thing happens this time too and as audience we get 2 good movies to end 2023!
