Booed by critics, but raking in the moolah anyway.
By Tathagata Mitra
BANGALORE: Looks like Sajid Khan’s celebration knows no bounds as despite receiving disheartening reviews from film critics, his nine-times-the-fun comedy is performing really well at the box-office, and slowly making its way towards the 100 crores mark.
Now Sajid has gone a step forward and announced his plans of turning Humshakals into a franchise, much like his previous film series, Housefull.
Sajid’s Housefull starred Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Riteish Deshmukh, Boman Irani, Lara Dutta, Arjun Rampal and the late Jiah Khan, making it one of her last films. Housefull 2 which released a year later had Akshay, Riteish, Boman returning with the added cast of John Abraham, Shreyas Talpade, Asin, Jacqueline Fernandez, Rishi Kapoor, Mithun Chakroborty and Randhir Kapoor. The second was by every measure a bigger film that the first. It was received better, it was funnier and it had the better cast. Sajid’s Humshakals already has Saif, Riteish and Ram Kapoor in triple roles. But Sajid still plans to make the sequel bigger than this one.
Says Sajid, about making Humshakals a franchise, according to a Bollywood Hungama news report, “After the release and downfall of Himmatwala, Humshakals doing well is great news. Now I am looking at the idea of converting it into a franchise much like the Housefull series. But the thing is that since Humshakals had so many characters, the sequel will have to have even more, so despite wanting to make a film like that first, we will need to think of its execution and feasibility.”
With Humshakals having earned more than 53 crores at the box office after six days of its release, the prospects for a sequel looks really bright. However, if we go by what Sajid said, we cannot yet be sure if the sequel will be a standalone sequel, like Housefull 2 or a continuation of the story of Ashok, Kumar and Mamaji.
The critics may have panned his films, but Sajid has no qualms after finding out the people have liked his film. In the midst of the rush that he is in with the film’s release, he told, “You know I have hardly had any sleep in the past couple of weeks, thanks to Humshakals release and promotions. But now that it has been liked by the audience, contrary to critic reports, I am looking at taking a 10 day break.”