Headlined by Janhvi Kapoor, the espionage drama Ulajh releases in the theatres on Friday, August 2, and received positive to mixed reviews. The film has seen a poor performance at the box office with the opening weekend collections below than Rs 5 crore, as per the entertainment tracking portal Sacnilk. Gulshan Devaiah, who is earning praise for his performance in Ulajh, defended its low box office performance on his X (formerly Twitter) account on Sunday, August 4. He also replied to a couple of netizens, who called the Janhvi Kapoor-starrer "an OTT film."
When a news portal reported Ulajh's box office collection with the title, "Ulajh box office collection day 2: Janhvi Kapoor film continues to struggle", Gulshan replied to the post and wrote, "Struggle is the salt that makes success taste good. The ones who don’t embrace the struggle will never achieve anything worthwhile. This is a tough business. Period."
When a netizen claimed that Ulajh would have done great numbers on OTT saying, "Sir it's question of removing the big screen obsession and going where the consumers are going - OTT is the future. This would have found love appreciation and big numbers on OTT. But wrongly distributed by going to cinemas", the actor responded, "Feature films are meant to be seen on the big screen. Hit flop toh chalta rahta hai (Films will be either hits or flops). As pragmatic as I am about a lot of things , I’m not willing to let go of my idealism when it comes to cinema. I also don’t expect people to understand this. It’s a very personal thing for me."
After another netizen called Uljah "an OTT film" as they posted, "I understand some actors don't like their films going OTT route but cinema depends hugely on audience. So, you have to respect audience choice. #Ulajh is an ott film. Nobody will spend money to watch it in theatre especially with Janhvi in it as lead", the Hunterr actor politely shut him down. Gulshan replied, "There is no such thing as an OTT film. It’s not a type. To release on OTT is a choice...yes, it’s a business decision mostly but what about the artistic decision. Do you know the size of just the Hindi film business per annum ? OTT can’t accommodate it all. Cinemas will exist in parallel just as it did for 2 decades with TV (which has the largest consumer base btw)."
Apart from Janhvi Kapoor and Gulshan Devaiah, Ulajh also features Roshan Mathew, Rajesh Tailang, Meiyang Chang, Jitendra Joshi, and Adil Hussain in pivotal roles. Directed by the National Award-winning filmmaker Sudhanshu Saria and produced by Junglee Pictures, the spy thriller clashed at the box office with Ajay Devgn and Tabu's romantic drama Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha. The Neeraj Pandey directorial is also struggling at the box office and has earned Rs 6.75 crore in its opening weekend.
READ | Adil Hussain opens up on working with Janhvi Kapoor in Ulajh, shares how she is similar to her mom Sridevi | Exclusive
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