The great Onam fiasco!

By: Settu Shankar
Monday, September 10, 2007

It was a disastrous Onam (2007) for the Malayalam film industry. Two week after Onam- the big festival season in Kerala- all the four releases have been turned out to be big losers at the box-office.

Ali Bhai, Ore Kadal, Kitchamani MBA, and Nivediyam have turned out to be colossal flops, which are unlikely to recover their combined cost of approximately Rs 10 Crore! Except Ali Bhai, all the other releases were unable to draw in crowd even in the opening week.

According to the Kerala box office sources, Ali Bhai is the only film which got 50 percent collections on the Onam day. The other films opened to such a thin audience that the theater owners will find it difficult to tun the show continuously. Ore Kadal, the film with a touch of class, witnessed just 12 percent collections on the Onam day at Ernakulam, the biggest collection centre of Kerala. But it is Shahrukh Khan's Chak De India which is still reporting for 100 percent collections even 3 weeks after the release!

Mohanlal's Hallo, on its 54th day, managed 75 percent collections, against 50 percent of his Onam release Ali Bhai.

Interestingly, the private TV channels were the biggest gainers on the Thiruvonam day. 5 out of 6 Malayalam Channels telecast Mammootty's super hit films like Rajamanickam one after the other, and kept the viewers glued to their TV sets!