Maryam Farooqui Moneycontrol News
While making sequels is not a bad idea, considering they make way more money than their predecessors and Bollywood isn’t shy to pump money into such ventures, not many this year could guarantee success.
A recent addition to the list of sequels in 2018 has been the Deol-starrer Yamla Pagla Deewana Phir Se that released along with horror-comedy Stree but could not sustain the tough competition the latter posed.
Despite the first two films belonging to this franchise posting a strong run at the box office, the third film was unable to live up to the expectations. It has collected around Rs 7 crore so far and the poor performance of the film indicates that this will be the end of this franchise.
Films like Hate Story 4 and Saheb Biwi aur Gangster 3 met with similar fate. Although Race 3 managed to enter the coveted Rs 100 crore club, the film could not bring audiences to the theatres in large numbers.
The silver lining for sequels this year has been the performance of films like Baaghi 2 and Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi, signalling that one of the most important factors for a sequel to do well is the brand recall of its prequel, and as long as that is strong, sequels will always do profitable business.
While Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi has minted Rs 18 crore and is still running in theatres, Baaghi 2 was termed a 'superhit' with collections at Rs 165 crore.
Unlike 2018, many sequels entertained moviegoers last year, Five sequel movies out of eight cruised past the Rs 100-crore mark. The box office made close to Rs 1,259 crore from sequels alone in 2017.
According to trade analysts, a new film means starting everything from scratch and something original always makes people wonder whether it is worth their time and money. But with sequels, there is already an established world and a certain following to it.
While 2017 could generate maximum benefits out of sequels last year, 2018 has witnessed only two successful sequels so far.
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