"Ours is an immature industry to release 4 films on same date," Javed Sheikh

This Eid-ul-fitr, four Pakistani films were released simultaneously including 7 Din Mohabbat In, Azaadi, Na Band Na Baraati and Javed Sheikh’s directorial Wajood. While the audiences and cinema houses might have been overjoyed with the prospect of multiple choices to watch and avenues for business respectively; it was the “injustice” Wajood received that made Javed Sheikh angry on distributors, producers and the government.

“Ours is an immature industry, otherwise, we would not have released four films on the same day,” said veteran actor Javed Sheikh while talking to a leading publication.

The actor claimed that his directorial return after a decade – he stopped directing movies after the failure of Asmaan ke Neechey at the Box Office – got nothing but injustice from the distributors who gave his film 110 shows on Eid day contrary to the 240 shows 7DMI which also features Javed Sheikh in a supporting role.

The actor compared the incident to that of release of Padman and Padmavat, where in order to give maximum business to both the movies the coinciding dates were adjusted. Whereas according to Javed Sheikh, regardless of his request to IMGC Global (distributors of Wajood) to shift the movie release to August, the movie was released on Eid and thus faced ”injustice” in terms of number of shows and exposure in the cinema.

Although the seasoned actor cum director have had simultaneous releases earlier as well, namely Bin Roye, Wrong No., Jawani Phir Nahi Ani and Hulla Gulla which all released around the same time. Javed Sheikh thinks of it as a coincidence – presumably because as an actor release dates do not really make a difference?

However with his upcoming film Teefa in Trouble, which is going to be a non-Eid release, Javed Sheikh believes that perception of Eid films being a box office hit will change amongst distributors.