'Newton' box-office collection Day 4: Rajkummar Rao's film dips on Monday

 Celebrities
Sep 262017
 

After a decent opening weekend, the box office collection of Bollywood actor Rajkummar Rao’s film, which is India’s official entry to Oscars, ‘Newton’ has dropped on Day 4. According to reports, ‘Newton’ has earned Rs 1.40 crore on Monday, taking its total box office collection of 4 days to Rs 8.30 crore. ‘Newton’ has seemingly got a push after it was declared India’s official entry to Oscars and the word of mouth has helped the movie too.

'Newton' box-office collection Day 4: Rajkummar Rao's film dips on Monday
Rajkummar Rao in ‘Newton’

According to a report in Boxofficeindia.com, director Amit Masurkar’s ‘Newton’ slowed down on Monday after having a good jump in its collections over the weekend.

‘Newton’ clashed with Sanjay Dutt’s comeback film ‘Bhoomi’ and Shraddha Kapoor’s ‘Haseena Parkar’ on Friday. If the opening weekend collections are any indication, Rajkummar Rao’s satire seems to be the audience’s pick among the three Bollywood releases. While it did open on a weak note on Friday, the Amit Masurkar-directed black comedy showed an exponential rise over the following two days. With collections of Rs 2.52 crore on Saturday and Rs 3.42 crore on Sunday, it enjoyed a strong opening weekend of Rs 6.90 crore.

While Shraddha Kapoor’s biopic lagged behind at Rs 6.1 crore, Sanjay Dutt’s father-daughter drama managed to garner Rs 7.48 crore over the first weekend. What is noteworthy though is that ‘Newton’ showed higher collections than both films on Saturday and Sunday. It can’t be denied that Newton’s selection as India’s official entry to Oscars raised the audience’s interest in the film.

Also read: Box office: ‘Newton’ beats Sanjay Dutt’s ‘Bhoomi’ and Shraddha Kapoor’s ‘Haseena Parkar’

‘Newton’, however, has courted controversy amid reports that the film has striking similarities with an Iranian movie ‘Secret Ballot’. ‘Newton’ director Amit V Masurkar says he was completely unaware of the Iranian film ‘Secret Ballot’ and that people should watch both the films and compare to find out if they are copied.

‘Newton’ has been chosen as India’s official selection for Oscars 2018. A day after this news was announced, several reports came out claiming that the film has been inspired by a 2001 Iranian movie titled ‘Secret Ballot’, helmed by Babak Payami. It focuses on the life of a ballot officer who visits a barren and desolate place to plead with voters to cast their votes and take part in the elections.

‘Newton’ had its world premiere at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival and won the International Confederation of Art Cinemas Award for best film in the ‘Forum Section’.

Also read: Newton Movie Review: It packs a full-ton and deserves full marks

‘Newton‘, which stars National Award-winning actor Rajkummar Rao, revolves around a government employee who struggles to supervise voting in a forest area of Chhattisgarh, controlled by Maoists.

Producer Marco Mueller feels that there was not even a hint of plagiarisation in Rajkummar Rao’s ‘Newton’, amidst claims that the movie has been inspired from his 2001 Iranian film ‘Secret Ballot’.

Also read: Anurag Kashyap takes a dig at those claiming ‘Newton’ is copied

On Monday night, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, in a Facebook post, shared Muller’s opinion after watching ‘Newton’. The filmmaker praised the Amit Masurkar-directed movie. Kashyap also took a dig at those claiming the movie was inspired by Babak Payami’s 2001 directorial venture.

“Newton is as much a copy of Secret Ballot as The Avengers is of Watan Ke Rakhwale. Newton is an award winner from Berlin Fest and I can promise you those curators watch more films in a year than the rest of us do in a lifetime,” Kashyap wrote.

Have you seen ‘Newton’ yet? What’s your reaction to the movie? Tell us in comments below.

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Will Newton's Similarity With An Iranian Film Jeopardise India's Only Chance At The Oscars?

 Celebrities
Sep 242017
 

Well, ‘Newton’ is India’s official entry for the Oscars. Since its announcement, people couldn’t contain their excitement. The film has already gardened great review—both from the critics as well as the viewers. In fact, it even beat ‘Baahubali- The Conclusion’, to be selected as India’s entry for the Academy Awards.

While on one side people couldn’t stop raving about the decision of the panel, on the other hand, ‘Newton’ was also declared to be quite similar to a critically-acclaimed Iranian film ‘Secret Ballot’, which was released in 2001. Oh boy! That already doesn’t sound very good.

Newton (c) Eros

Apparently, the premise of both the films is very similar to each other. When Secret Ballot was released, it had already won the Silver Lion Award for Best Director at Venice. 

One of the basic differences between the two films is that Secret Ballot had a female protagonist, while Newton has Rajkummar Rao playing the lead. And few alterations are made in the script keeping India in mind.

Secret Ballot(c) Twitter

This piece of news went viral on the social media within no time, once India declared ‘Newton’ as its official entry to the Oscars. Many might call the plot being similar as an inspiration; many might also think of it as a remake of someone else’s work. Either way, this doesn’t make a good picture for our entry at the Oscars.

But this ain’t the first time. A similar event occurred when Anurag Basu’s ‘Barfi’ was sent as our official entry to the Awards and later it was said to be adapted from Charlie Chaplin’s comedies and Hollywood sources.

Now that certainly doesn’t keep us in a good place. Especially when it has happened once, wouldn’t it be wise to do our homework rightfully before declaring our nominations?

Newton (c) Eros

Being said that, the director and co-writer of Rajkummar Rao starrer Amit Masurkar said that ‘Newton’ is as original as it can get and is just inspired by the Iranian film. With all the controversy going around, one thing can be said for sure that there will be an uproar about it going for the Oscars.

Now wouldn’t it be interesting to see where does Newton’s law of gravity take this film?