Why Audiences Skipped India’s Oscar Pick ‘Homebound’

MUMBAI- Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor starrer ‘Homebound’ finally reached the cinema halls on September 26. Despite being India’s official entry for the Oscars, the drama was given a limited number of screens in the theatres.

Not just that, it also failed to attract the audience to the theatres, even though a small number of cinema-goers who went appreciated Karan Johar’s project wholeheartedly.

Film critic and journalist Ramachandran Srinivasan stated that the short duration of ‘Homebound’ could be a major reason why the film did not get a positive response in India.

“When you say a film like ‘Homebound’ is one hour and four minutes long, and after censorship, you are left with just about one hour and two minutes, the question arises—why would I spend the same amount of money watching such a film when I could watch a full-fledged entertainer in theatres? That’s possibly one of the major reasons why ‘Homebound’ was not widely welcomed at home,” he said.

Commenting on whether there was enough of a campaign to create awareness for ‘Homebound’, Ramachandran shared, “Multiplexes, which are the primary target for a film like this, need programmers who allocate screens based on buzz and box office performance.”

“The collections weren’t strong—around seventy-five lakhs in early shows—which made programmers hesitant. They’d rather back a film that fills theatres than one that has just a handful of viewers,” he added.

“But that doesn’t mean filmmakers get discouraged. Every film has its own destiny. The real challenge is awareness—when audiences don’t even know a film is releasing amidst so many web shows and movies, how will they come to theatres?” he said. (IANS)