Hansal Mehta on The Buckingham Murders BO reception: People write obituaries for a film…
About The Buckingham Murders and the emphasis on box office numbers, director Hansal Mehta says collections “don’t necessarily communicate the entire picture”.
Filmmaker Hansal Mehta isn’t happy about the box office-centric conversation around his recently-released thriller, The Buckingham Murders, starring Kareena Kapoor Khan in the lead role. “My time and effort is ultimately nobody’s business. Also, it’s the producers who’ve invested the money in the project, and yet people talk about it as if it’s their money,” says the 56-year-old, adding, “The problem lies in the fact that people don’t see the film for what it does to them, or for its story and characters. They are so interested in the numbers that it has become reductive.”
Mehta emphasises that box-office collections are only a part and “don’t necessarily communicate the entire picture”. “When we launched the trailer of our film, Ekta (Kapoor, co-producer) had mentioned how numbers and profits are two different things. The film has been profitable from day one,” the filmmaker shares, adding, “We have to give the audiences some time, for word of mouth to spread. But people write obituaries for a film over a weekend.”
The source of the box office collections, he clarifies, is not right. “Whatever numbers were quoted, they were wrong. Two versions of the film were released in Hinglish and Hindi. However, only numbers of one version were reported,” he ends.
Rishabh Suri is an Assistant Editor, film critic, and professional overthinker of plot points. He writes for HT City, keeping pace with an industry where news cycles expire long before the popcorn gets cold. He completed his graduation in English Honours from Kirori Mal College, followed by a Master’s degree in English Literature-effectively training his brain to over-analyse classic texts before applying those exact same skills to 3-hour Bollywood blockbusters. He got into the profession when he had barely graduated from college and has been at HT ever since. At HT, Rishabh reviews films with a simple rule: skip the dense academic jargon and get straight to the point. Beyond reviews, as Assistant Editor, he helps navigate the broader circus of showbiz, tracking everything from OTT shifts to sudden box office panics. In a beat driven by loud PR machinery and carefully scripted answers, Rishabh prefers cutting through the noise to focus on how stories get made and why trends shift. When he isn’t writing against a deadline, he is usually sitting in a dark theater, compulsively memorising dialogues. For Rishabh, analysing movies isn't just a day job- it’s a habit he couldn't turn off even if he tried.
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