Saturday, 5th December 11:00 AM IST

Last decade has proved that festival release is more important than the quality of the film. Some real average films did exceedingly well and this is first time that a film with new generation star will clash against ruling Khan at box office. On one hand people are going gaga over brand value of Rohit Shetty or praising epic scale of 'Bajirao Mastani'.

But the real issues are budget as we saw in the case of few films this year where budget was the main villain i.e. 'Bombay Velvet', 'Tamasha'. 'Bajirao Mastani' is made on budget in excess of 90 cr plus P & A of 18-20 cr makes it 100 cr plus affair minimum. With 5 cr of music and 15 cr of satellite it needs to cover rest from theatrical revenues. Film needs 75 cr plus share minimum to break even. Now the billion dollar question is whether it can do that against 'Dilwale' which has Shahrukh Khan who will ensure big opening n overseas markets, Rohit Shetty will bring families to cinema and Varun is today the most bankable star among masses and youth.

If 'Bajirao Mastani' takes a solid opening in range of 11-12 cr nett which is the sentiment among trade even then it will have weekend of 40-45 cr nett and lifetime not in excess of 100-110 cr which means share of 50 cr. Overseas will bring maximum share of around 25-30 cr. In these best case scenarios it will break even and if reviews or response to the film is less than the best then these figures will disappear in thin air. So now comes the question what is the logic behind this clash that too a week before Christmas?

If film fails to garner good reviews then even on Monday i.e. 21st December film will show cracks and there will not be a holiday advantage from 25th onwards to the new year. This scenario can only help exhibitors as they will mint money initially but what will happen to producers of these films.is not a tough guess at all. Last year' 'PK' did 340 cr nett in India and even both films together can match that total then it will be a lucky situation.

Overall it seems quite a grim situation for makers of 'Bajirao Mastani' and distributors of 'Dilwale' as it looks quite impossible to recover money ultimately though producers of 'Dilwale' are already secured with outright sale of the film and 'Bajirao Mastani' has not many distributors backing it.