"It still hurts and honestly, I still need to understand why it didn't work, confesses Emraan, "Early calls from trade were so positive when TUM MILE hit the screens. The response was more than overwhelming as the first shows were bigger than even RAAZ - THE MYSTERY CONTINUES and JANNAT. However, after such a great opening, the scenario changed in the evening."
When asked to analyse the reason behind the fall of the film's fortunes, Emraan says with a shrug, "Post the release, you can analyse the film in any which way that you may want. What I think though is that people expected a disaster film. Now because it released with another Hollywood big budget disaster film (2012) which was actually the flavour of the season, people felt that chalo, disaster movie hi dekhni hai to usse dekhte hain. That was their appetite for the weekend and 2012 turned out to be their first choice."
There are lessons that he for sure has learnt over the last few months.
"It is also about knowing that one has to be true to the market. Your marketing campaign has to be about the film and not something which is peripheral. TUM MILE was the story about a couple with disaster just being a subplot. However, the posters gave an impression of it being an out and out disaster film. The film was about a couple and how they fell in love after breaking up but unfortunately that point was totally missed from the marketing and promotional campaign. However, the campaign was totally bang on target in case of ONCE UPON A TIME IN MUMBAAI, something which has clearly paid off", ends Emraan on a happy note.
