April 30, 2010 12:50:20 PM IST Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network

One of the underlining features of HOUSEFULL is that Akshay Kumar gets a resounding thrash from our forefathers the monkey and that too for continuous two minutes. May be, it is the irritation of the monkey that the humans have treaded into his territory of monkey business so the monkey has vented out his frustration on Akshay Kumar But would this resounding thrashing bring the crowds back to the cinema halls? The idea seems precisely to be the same. HOUSEFULL is releasing at a time when the schools have closed down, and there is no better way to wean them to cinema halls than through the monkey act, as it is one animal whose pranks continue to amuse and enlighten the children in a big way.

Whenever monkeys have been a part of the content in a significant way, they have brought cheers to the box office. The most successful example under this category was David Dhawan's AANKHEIN that made a monkey more popular than Govinda and Chunky Pandey put together. The footfalls of the audience, more so the audience of the persuasive kind, i.e. the children thronged the cinema halls in big numbers to soak in monkey's glory and made AANKHEIN one of the biggest hits of all times.

It is also an interesting counterpoise that while in the world of Hindi cinema animals more so monkeys make intermittent appearances; they continuously on a yearly basis make their presence felt in the world of Hollywood cinema.

It is also interesting to underline that animals in all forms whenever they have made their appearance in the world of Hindi cinema have ensured that film indeed becomes a hit and the most successful examples under this category include TERI MEHERBANIAAN produced and directed by K.C. Bokadia and HAATHI MERE SAATHI.

No wonder, Sajid Khan, being a street smart alec that he is, he has packed in the monkey as an integral ingredient of his new offering HOUSEFULL to ensure that he does not slip in the category of the directors who have a successful debut but are not able to live up to the reputation subsequently,

After all, Sajid Khan had been successful in his debut with HEYY BABYY, as he had used a child as the binding element of the content and the children had ensured him success. He should indeed be hoping that the inclusion of monkeys would provide him the encore.