Pick any biggie with a major star and you would realize that it has at least 50 days of promotional plan designed around it. Even John Abraham would have expected the same for his production Parmanu – The Story of Pokharan which unfortunately found itself in the midst of quite a few troubled en route release. There was a legal battle that had ensued between John Abraham and the other producer Prerna Arora and as a result, the film was pushed ahead from its original release in late 2017 to 2018 instead.
Eventually, when the film was cleared for release after John won the legal battle, there was only one choice available (and the best one at that) – release the film ASAP. In a jiffy, the entire plan was put together for the film’s marketing, promotion and release. The promo was unveiled on 11th May 2018 and in just 15 days flat, the film hit the screens.
The date was 25th May 2018.
Many wondered though if it was a professional hara-kiri. However, as is the saying, one can’t put a good film down. Director Abhishek Sharma had come up with a riveting patriotic saga and as a producer, John Abraham stood behind the film was a rock. He was quite convinced about the end product and moreover as an actor too, he came up with his career best performance.
On its release, the film took a fair start of 4.82 crores but post that word of mouth took over and then there was no stopping this true tale of India’s nuclear mission. The weekend grew to 20.78 crores but what made the film’s success even sweeter was the fact that the lifetime numbers were more than triple of that. While doubling up of the weekend by itself is a decent enough trend, tripling it was a sign of acceptance amongst the larger junta.
Parmanu – The Story of Pokhran ended its run at 65 crores though the fact be stated, it actually deserved to enter the 100 Crore Club. If not for the delay and the lack of optimal marketing and promotional effort, this one could well have been a John Abraham solo starrer. He has missed that on a few occasions [Welcome Back, Batla House, Satyameva Jayate] but if one has to call out a prestigious film that indeed deserved to cover a much larger distance, this one has to be it!