Just a few days are left for RA.One’s release. The media presence of the movie is so powerful most of the other movies scheduled for release in the next couple of weeks get very little share of space and take a clobbering in FilmTrac. Also, even the audience is not interested in looking at anything new till the RA.One fever subsides. In times like these when other films track poorly, it is necessary for them to lie low and not waste money in media. The expensive effort will not give adequate returns.
RA.One continues to maintain an FTI in the range of 55-60. Any fluctuations in the FTI are not intrinsic to the film but more to do with the shifting patterns in the four parameters that we use to compute the FTI. When we mine the data of this film we see some interesting features. The highest source of awareness of the film is still television. The enormous effort that has gone in to occupying the digital media has not been a TOM source of awareness. Obviously the screen size and the quality of image has a huge impact on the equity of the film. The theatrical trailers have not played a huge role in creating awareness but the outdoor has. For theatrical trailers to create a very significant awareness one needs a big film and not much has happened in the last couple of weeks to shake the foundation of box-office. The expected audience profile consists of younger females, much more than younger males. The driver of the movie, the reasons why audience would like to see the movie, is Shah Rukh Khan.
The audience wants to watch a film for a number of reasons and these could be the star cast, the story, the suspense, the music etc. In RA.One the prime reason for watching the movie, the prime driver, is Shah Rukh Khan (64 per cent) and Kareena Kapoor as the driver to watch the film is 8 per cent. It is unusual to have the highest paid leading actress, a size zero star, score so low as a film’s driver. This difference is huge and makes the film a complete Shah Rukh Khan dominated film. With such numbers the onus is totally on Shah Rukh Khan to deliver the hyped experience. A single driver with a very large number is a double-edged sword. The promotion of a film because of a single driver can be very focused but once the film is released if the very high expectation created by the pre-release is not delivered on Friday, the movie has no other buttress for support. However, given the history of Shah Rukh Khan and the huge investments made in the media the need to worry about the film’s delivery is a moot point. I expect the movie to open well on Wednesday but pick up during the holidays because the values of two parameters, Definitely Plan to See (DPS) and Definitely Plan to See in Opening Weekend (DPSOWE), show a fairly substantial gap. With the reported 3500 screens that the movie is expected to hit, we are looking at a very unique event. Will this movie comfortably cross Dabangg and 3 Idiots? So far the numbers are in RA.One’s favour.
The other movies scheduled for release before the end of this month are Be-Careful, Dammadam and Tell Me O Kkhuda. Why these movies are scheduled for release around Diwali and RA.One is a mystery to me. Of these four movies only Tell Me O Kkhuda has an FTI of around 16, which is good. This number will be affected by RA.One once it is released. Unfortunately we will not be able to report the numbers in time.
In this context it is worth looking at Rockstar. In my estimate the PoP value of the trailer is just about 40. For a movie that has a big potential a slightly better average FTI will not be of much help. In fact the PoP of the trailer should have been around 55-60 to get the best out of the movie. With RA.One making all the noise the numbers of Rockstar are a little less than expected. I am sure post-Diwali these numbers will start moving Northwards.
