Star vs Story: Will Kangana's Judgementall Hai Kya stand strong at the box office despite all the controversy?

When films like Akshay Kumar-starrer Kesari and Kangana Ranaut's Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi could not live upto expectations, an industry expert had said this is because the star overpowered the story.

“It's a great subject (Kesari) which hasn't been treated greatly. It is like the Kangana Ranaut-starrer Manikarnika. These films are examples of good subjects making a small impact at the box office because the star became the story,” he had said.

And now the question is whether Kangana Ranaut’s stardom will come in the way of her recent offering Judgementall Hai Kya's success, which will hit theatres on July 26.

The actor, who has become controversy’s favourite child, recently got into a heated argument with a journalist which later resulted in a media ban.

However, film trade analyst Sarita Singh thinks Kangana being in controversy will in fact help the film. “Judgementall Hai Kya has received good reviews after its previews,” she said.

And Singh expects the film to open in the range of Rs 6.5 to Rs 7.5 crore, especially with “Ekta Kapoor and team going all out to promote this film because they know the strength of it is the strong content.”

This film is crucial for Kangana, who could not make a mark at the box office with her last two offerings, Manikarnika and Simran, that gathered Rs 90 crore with a budget of Rs 99 crore and Rs 14 crore with a budget of Rs 28 crore, respectively.

But it is not Kangana alone for whom Judgementall Hai Kya is important.

According to Singh, for Balaji, it’s very important that this movie does well at box office. They badly need a hit since most of their previous releases didn’t do well at the box office.

In fact, Balaji’s film business witnessed a rough patch when two big budget ventures, Great Grand Masti and Kya Kool Hain Hum 3, tanked at the box office. So much so that the production house had decided to put its film business on hold.

But now the company has adopted a more de-risked approach and is making conservative investments after suffering losses for a couple of years.

In 2018, the company witnessed good movie business after it distributed Lipstick Under My Burkha.

Hence, the company is focused on pre-sales to mitigate the commercial risk in the movie business.

The company has recovered Judgementall Hai Kya’s production cost through pre-sales.

For FY20, there are four films in the pipeline and the production cost for these movies has also been recovered via pre-sales.

These films include Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare, Jabariya Jodi, DreamGirl and Kaju.