Extremely Poor Advance Booking for Housefull 5

Akshay Kumar’s Housefull 5 is the next big budget entertainer from Bollywood. Releasing on June 6, the Housefull 5 Trailer turned out to be really underwhelming but the songs carried the buzz till the last moment. Another big problem for the film’s run which has arised recently is that the advance booking is not showing the buzz that the industry was anticipating.

Poor Advance Booking (India)

Advance Booking for Housefull 5 is poor due to its extremely dull trending among the audience. Housefull 5 is a lavish film with a ₹ 375 crore budget which makes it the most expensive comedy film in Hindi film industry. It will be a loss making venture if the reviews are not in favour of the film.

Ticket Sales for Housefull 5 at the national chains namely PVR, Inox, Cinepolis is low. By the time the article is going live, Housefull 5 would have sold 30K tickets at the national chains with 1 day and a few hours to go. The bad news is that these sales indicate Low Audience Interest on Housefull 5 pre booking sale as blockbusters like Pathaan, Jawan, KGF2, Pushpa 2 The Rule were on a different level till now.

But considering Akshay Kumar’s poor track record at the box office post pandemic, we must compare it with films that opened in the ₹ 20cr+ range but even then, Housefull 5 lies far behind. For example, at the same time, Hrithik Roshan starrer Fighter had crossed 70K and on pre-Republic day holiday it opened with ₹ 21 crore nett and hence you can understand the underwhelming numbers that this huge multi-starrer  is going to post on Day 1. In fact, a film like Dunki posted ₹ 27 crore nett on Day 1 and was at 125K tickets by now whereas Housefull 5 is just near 30K. And hence, Housefull 5 Fails to Impress in Advance Booking.

Housefull 5 Trailer was surely underwhelming but the songs are popular and are doing well. Even on considering Akshay Kumar’s poor track record post pandemic, the Cold Response to Housefull 5 Pre Booking is still not justified. 

The Version A and Version B Drama

Inside Box Office (IBO) with its highly accurate IBO Tracking, has noticed that this Version A and Version B gimmick has hurt the opening day business of the film, in both India and Overseas. Poor Opening Buzz for Housefull 5 exists because of the complicated nature of asking things. 

The initial momentum suggests there is no urgency to watch the film and Housefull 5 Struggles in Pre-Sales even 1 day before release. In overseas markets, the momentum was good when there was only one version for Housefull 5 listed on all the ticketing platforms. But, soon after it became Housefull 5 A and Housefull 5 B in the overseas markets, the advance booking momentum slowed down.

First, assets have to work. People decide whether to go for movies or not. If yes, they go through the options that are available. After they select the desired film, they get two options to either select version A or version B and this impacts the planning. No one wants to take so many decisions and hence people tend to wait for reviews, and then book. If A gets poor WOM, B will also get no takers so it’s a lost battle in totality. 

Failed Marketing Gimmick of A and B

Trade will hype every decision taken by makers but veterans know how trash this idea really is. In one way or the other, this is like a clash. There are distributors and then exhibitors who plan on show allotment. And poor word of mouth for one version will impact the other version too. And because of the options, audience will try to delay their bookings only because they need more feedback and assurance before selecting either A or B. 

Housefull 5 Overseas Booking Data 

Housefull 5 Advance Booking Reports from Overseas Markets were encouraging. A market like Australia has pre-sales worth A$45K which is much better than previous Akshay Kumar starrers but the momentum slowed down after the shows were divided into Version A and Version B.

The most important market during the opening weekend of Housefull 5 is the Middle East due to the Eid Holiday weekend but very less shows were listed. Even then the bookings were good but after the shows got divided, the momentum slowed down.

However, in totality, the overseas numbers are better than India numbers and the film needs a miracle in order to break even and not turn into a loss venture. Housefull 5 OTT rights were sold for ₹ 75 crore, Satellite Rights for ₹ 40 crore while Housefull 5 Music rights were sold for ₹ 20 crore but Housefull 5 still needs ₹ 350 crore at the worldwide box office to qualify as a Semi-Hit. Anything below ₹ 285 crore will be loss making.

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