Music and magic have their own spells to charm Hindi movie audiences. But the box office performances of the recent Bollywood releases prove otherwise. Sujoy Ghosh’s fantasy movie, Aladin and Vipul Amrutlal Shah’s London Dreams which released last week were supposed to kick up the post Diwali season. But what we got to see was the dismal box office figures of both.

 Aladin which is a modern take on the Arabian Nights tale was directed by Sujoy Ghosh (Jhankar Beats) and starred Riteish Deshmukh as the titular character with newcomer Jacqueline Fernandez as his love interest, Amitabh Bachchan and the genie and Sanjay Dutt as the villainous Ring Master. The much promoted special effects extravaganza turned out to be a poor revenue generator for its producers. This is considered as the least appreciated effort from director Sujoy Ghosh. Other than a few moments of fun and visual feast the movie was not engaging enough. The cons outweighed the pros and that was reflected in the audience attendance as well. Aladin has few chances of recovering its costs.

London Dreams had its share of hype primarily due to the teaming up of Ajay Devgan and Salman Khan after the blockbusting musical drama Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. With Asin Thottumkal fresh off her Ghajini outing and a musical romantic drama quotient, London Dreams had director Vipul Amrutlal Shah as the captain of the ship. This is Vipul’s first movie without Akshay Kumar and definitely the BO results of London Dreams hint that Akshay is Vipul’s lucky mascot. Critics are divided on their opinion on London Dreams with some calling it an excellent effort while others calling it a waste.

 Though London Dreams has got more viewers than Aladin, the overall run looks too weak to take it to a hit level. Box Office analysts have calculated its fate to be that of a strictly average performer and that’s not a good piece of news for the cast and crew.

- Sanjoy Alexander is a contributing writer to a leading Indian magazine. He is an avid blogger who blogs on movies, cars and photography at http://reelsandwheels.blogspot.com.    This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it