Box Office Report Card: The Biggest Flops so far

"I had flops, I had success," French filmmaker Agnes Varda once famously quipped. Wish you could apply the same logic to some of the biggest flops this year which includes, for the record, films funded by the best-known studios operating today.
The films in question, at least some of them, were highly anticipated and were expected to do well. Even the top stars couldn't save them from biting the dust.

In the second part of our series on the half-yearly box office stock-taking, we list out the biggest flops so far.

Thank You

It had everything going for it. A mega multi-starrer produced by UTV with the hit-maker Anees Bazmee at the helm.

Naturally, Anees thought he peppered it with just about enough one-liners which eventually sounded the death knell for the film. Under flak from the critics, it was assumed the film would conquer the cash counters.

What the makers conveniently forget that neither Akshay Kumar's star power, Anees' Midas touch nor UTV's marketing skills can save a disaster doomed towards disaster-dom. Simply told, Thank You was a terrible film.

Dubbed the biggest disaster of this year, trade analyst Atul Mohan points out, "The cost of acquisition was higher and the film's run was just not enough to cover it. That's why it turned out the way it did."

Read the review here.

Vishal Bhardwaj is the darling of the intelligentsia but has never really been a mass filmmaker. However, his earlier films such as Maqbool or Omkara have performed well commercially.

7 Khoon Maaf, his ambitious story of the psychotic Susanna who's on a killing spree, is being increasingly looked at as a film that may acquire a cult status at a later point.

For now, it tanked terribly, reckon trade experts. Taran Adarsh, editor, Trade Guide, feels the whole concept of a woman killing her husbands one by one was faulty. "It was the idea that failed," says Taran, who had predicted a diverse reaction for a film like this.

Read the review here

Akshay Kumar's rough patch entered into another season as Patiala House generated disastrous word of mouth. If Tees Maar Khan was the nadir, Patiala House was another low.

The film opened to a poor response and it was announced, in absolutely damage control mode, that it has had a fantastic run at the foreign ticket windows.

Atul believes Akshay was massively miscast as a cricketer. "Again, the budget was too high and that made it difficult to recover the cost."

Read the review here

What was Abhishek Bachchan doing in a film that had given up hope in the first few minutes itself? Game was all slick, no script. All the actors, including a thoroughly bored Abhishek, sleep-walked through their roles. There was nothing in it for anyone, except for the visceral pleasures of the exotic locales of Turkey and Greece.

"From its first look to the release, no one had any clue what the film was about," says Atul, adding, "There was absolutely no connection established between the audience and the film and the makers are to be blamed. Just beaming glossy promos isn't enough."

That was precisely the audience's cry: "enough."

Read the review here.

Abhishek Bachchan continued his flop run with this crime thriller set in Goa.

Although taut and narrated well, Dum Maaro Dum found few takers. The drugs deals, after all, failed to provide the 'highs' Abhishek was badly hankering for.

According to Taran, the film had an average opening and it just couldn't sustain its run.

Concurs Atul, "The title song controversy with Dev Anand being miffed was the first indication that the film won't be accepted. Also, the cost of acquisition was on the higher side causing the producers to lose their money."

Read the review here.

The sequel to the hit comedy Bheja Fry couldn't repeat the original's magic. The promos looked quite promising but bad press destroyed whatever little chance the film had at the box office.

The journey of Bharat Bhushan, this time round, began on an average note. It lacked the comic punches of the first film and unlike Dhamaal or the Golmaal series, it failed to cash in on the brand Bheja Fry.

Read the review here.

An insipid campus caper, Always Kabhi Kabhi was backed by Shah Rukh Khan's star power. However, the marketing-savvy superstar skipped most of the film's events even as people sinisterly read into SRK's absence.

A tale of friendship and love, it opened poorly even in the metros.

"The music lacked melody and the much-needed marketing was absent. And that was surprising considering it's an SRK production," says Atul.

Read the review here.

Not everyone is Aamir Khan who can touch Taare Zameen Par and turn it into gold.

Sagar Ballary's children's flick was good in parts but was let down by its meandering plot.

There weren't any stars and the production values looked weak. Naturally, the film registered dismal collection in its opening week and never recovered from the initial bout of poor response.

Read the review here.

Led by an interesting cast of Om Puri, Shreyas Talpade and Deepak Dobriyal, Teen Thay Bhai was a triple disaster.

Although Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra gave it some respectability as he fetched up as a producer, the film about three warring brothers invited acute criticism upon its release.

According to trade reports, it only managed to rake in Rs 2 crore in its first weekend. Given the fact that most films make a killing on weekends this is deemed rather dismal.

Read the review here.