"Udta Punjab" has been released after a prolonged controversy that lasted till a day before its screening in cinema halls on Friday. Both the Supreme Court and the High Court of Punjab and Haryana cleared the hurdles on Thursday for the screening of the Hindi film, co-produced by Anurag Kashyap's Phantom Films and Ekta Kapoor's Balaji Telefilms.
Will the Shahid Kapoor-Alia Bhatt starrer set the cash registers ringing at the box office and lift the share price of Balaji Telefilms, similar to what "Housefull 3" did to Eros International shares?
On Friday, the Balaji Telefilms stock was trading with a gain of about 1 percent at Rs. 117.45 at around 12.35 p.m. on the BSE. The stock has been on a winning streak since Monday, gaining from Rs. 109 on Monday. Ekta Kapoor is one of the directors in Balaji Telefilms.
The company's standalone revenues rose 20 percent to Rs. 247.32 crore for the financial year 2015-16 while net profit jumped 256 percent to Rs. 43.67 crore, according to a regulatory filing with the BSE.
The Eros stock gained almost 7 percent within four days of "Housefull 3" releasing at the box office, encouraged by its opening weekend box office collection of about Rs. 100 crore.
Ekta Kapoor is confident of "Udta Punjab" having a decent run at the box office, as could be gauged from her retweet that tickets for the film are sold out.
#UdtaPunjab Releasing Tomorrow SOLD OUT SOLD OUT Morning ton Ley Ke Night Tak De Shows Sold out pic.twitter.com/iOgYjfeQBX
— Diljit Dosanjh (@diljitdosanjh) June 16, 2016
Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Diljit Dosanjh-starrer "Udta Punjab" got positive reviews in the Gulf where the film was released on Thursday.
The film has got positive reviews by critics such as "an undeniably exhilarating watch", "deserving" and "interesting" but one critic described as "disappointing".
