“Padman”, the latest Hindi movie starring the famous actors Akshay Kumar, Radhika Apte and Sonam Kapoor, recently opened in India on February 9, 2018. After being postponed in order to avoid clashing with the box office collections of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s controversial “Padmaavat”, which landed in theaters on February 2, “Padman” finally entered the scene and charmed fans all over India and beyond.
“I didn’t want to make a documentary,” said Akshay Kumar in an interview with news outlet Business Insider. “I wanted to make a commercial film so people can see it. It’s a film you can take your children to, even though it talks about sanitary pads. It’s a universal subject. Nobody has ever tried to touch this subject.” He went on to emphasize the power of movies – and entertainment in general – to turn the tide of taboos. Akshay’s last Hindi movie before “Padman”, called “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha”, had similar intentions and was very well received by fans worldwide.
Directed by R. Balki, “Padman” collected a healthy 40 crore during its opening weekend at the Indian box office. With these numbers, the film is set to be yet another successful and socially relevant movie in India!
Nevertheless, the latest numbers dipped in Monday’s box office collections. One possible explanation for the decline may be the Indian Express’ review of the movie on February 13, 2018: “PadMan is as worthy, but it isn’t a particularly good film. It has tonal problems, swinging between commonplace-ness and flat-out filmi-ness, because it is trying to appeal to many constituencies at the same time.”
CONSIDERABLE P2P DEMAND FOR AKSHAY’S LATEST HINDI MOVIE, BUT CAN IT BEAT TOP PERFORMERS LIKE ‘TOILET: EK PREM KATHA’ OR ‘GOLMAAL AGAIN’?
Looking at the P2P data, which reflects the demand for content in target markets around the world, the latest Hindi movie “Padman” performed incredibly well. Twenty torrent files for the new Bollywood film were released on the day it premiered in theaters. As a result, file sharing activity jumped to 252,000 P2P users the following day. Compared with other top Hindi movies released recently, such as “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha” or “Golmaal Again”, which are among the top 10 list of the most popular Hindi movie releases in 2017, “Padman” did not reach as many P2P user numbers on the day following its official release. However, the film’s popularity becomes clear if we take into account the number of days it was in February’s top Hindi movie charts: As of February 14, “Padman” had only been available for six days, yet had already landed in spot 3 on the list of February’s top Hindi movies, propelled by more than 800,000 fans from India and beyond!
PAKISTANI MOVIE BAN CANNOT STOP FANS FROM WATCHING ‘PADMAN’
Most fans of “Padman” came from India – the metro cities of Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi in particular. And as can be expected for Bollywood movies, “Padman” is also being watched in countries like Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Nepal and Saudi Arabia.
In Pakistan, however, Akshay’s latest Hindi movie got banned across all screens by the Punjab Film Censor Board as well as the Federal Censor Board.
“We can’t allow our film distributors to import films which are against our traditions and culture,” said Ishaq Ahmed, a member of the Film Censor Board, as quoted in the Indian Express on February 11, 2018.
Yet despite this resistance, India’s neighbor showed huge interest in “Padman,” which was most popular in the city of Lahore, Punjab, followed by Islamabad and Karachi.
As for the UAE, most “Padman” fans live in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. And in Nepal – where many of the people understand Hindi – the capital city of Kathmandu attracted the largest number of fans downloading and sharing the new Bollywood movie in P2P networks. Jawalakhel and Lalitpur come second and third among Nepali cities.
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"Padman" facts:
Genre: Drama, History, Romance* Release date (India): February 9, 2018* First seen torrent: February 9, 2018 Director: R. Balki* Writers: R. Balki, Swanand Kirkire* Stars: Akshay Kumar, Radhika Apte, Sonam Kapoor * Production companies: Mrs Funnybones Movies, Hope Productions, KriArj Entertainment, Cape of Good Films, Columbia Pictures* Box office collection (2/9/18-2/14/18): 52.04 crore** Total number of file sharers (2/9/18-2/14/18): 591,103
Source: TECXIPIO PIC Definition: The rankings are based on the number of unique file sharers: How many peers (file sharers) shared at least one file of Akshay Kumar's latest Hindi movie “Padman"?
Further sources:
* IMDb
** The Indian Express