This week The Dirty Picture has hogged the limelight in mass media, without numbing the senses with 360 or 720 degree marketing blitzkrieg. The theatrical trailer has been a big hit on the digital media. If one goes by the expert comments, the movie has the classic masala mix delivered in a very sophisticated fashion by a talented Vidya Balan. The audience too has maintained a high degree of interest and urgency to watch the film. The estimated Film Trac Index of the movie for this week was 37, and the index has held its promise in this week. The movie will open very well and will continue through the first week with an excellent attendance. The only dampening factor for the box-office numbers will be its ‘A’ certificate.
The FTI is a weighted number that can accurately estimate the opening weekend box-office numbers of a film. The collections during the balance of the first week and thereafter would depend on the film’s impact on the first weekend audience and the subsequent twitter and chatter. The four parameters of FT are: Spontaneous Recall, Aided Recall, Definitely See, Will Definitely See on the opening weekend. Different sets of numbers of these parameters can lead to the same FTI. Hence to make a better estimate of the box-office numbers it is necessary to look at the changes in these parameters every week.The Dirty Picture has created a huge top-of-mind awareness with one out of two mentioning the film. Hence for 50 per cent of the movie audience
The Dirty Picture is the first one they can think of when they think about movies they expect to watch in the immediate future. Such a spontaneous recall is not usually seen except in the case of blockbuster movies. The desire to watch the movie, DPS, has shown a 25 per cent increase over the last week and the Urgency factor (DPSOWE) is up by almost 25 per cent. The potential audience for the balance of first week and the following weeks is indicated by DPS (58 per cent). The number indicates that the movie will carry through for three weeks quite comfortably. The Dirty Picture has tracked very well and has a promise to run well for 3-4 weeks. The movie should do better than the trade estimates.
The rest of December is dotted with movies that do not have a significant FTI, except for Don 2 and Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl (LRB). LRB returns with the hit pair of Band Baaja Baaraat, Anushka Sharma and Ranveer Singh. The film has tracked reasonably well and the PoP of this film is also pretty good, and I estimate the value of the promo to be around 39. The theatrical trailer indicates a film that is fun, entertaining and it has the romance to pull the husband-wife-baba-baby gang. With a crisp trailer that presents the plot without any pretence, and several neat visual hooks to connote romance, suspense and thrill the film should improve its FTI by a few points next week and look for Rs 25-30 crore first week opening.
Don 2 continues to maintain its FTI, with happy numbers against Desire to see the film and the Urgency To See the film. December will be good for the Hindi Film Industry, with The Dirty Picture, LRB and Don 2 bringing cheer before the New Year.doc@4sight.co.in
