Kaushal Oza picked October 23 early. When Little Thomas locked the date on September 11, it was the only film on the calendar. By this week, the release sheet has filled up: seven Hindi titles and two international films are now opening that Friday—nine films competing for screens, shows and attention.
“Have you ever seen nine films releasing on a single Friday?” the director told Bollywood Hungama. “This must be a record.”
The quiet-film problem
Little Thomas is not the typical crowded-weekend title. The family drama stars Gulshan Devaiah and Rasika Dugal, with Anurag Kashyap among its producers through Good Bad Films. It arrives with a U/A 7+ certificate rather than a U rating; Oza says that is the best outcome under current CBFC guidelines.
The film had a festival run in Melbourne and Toronto in 2024 and a screening in New York, a deliberate validation play for a small title that cannot open on star power alone. But after the festival run, finding a release window took time. The team wanted an uncrowded Friday; instead it got one of the busiest of the season.
Why the clash matters
For an independent, word-of-mouth release, the danger is not just Friday speed—it is how quickly cinemas prune shows. Oza argues that multiplexes often cut programmes by the second day when a film opens soft. That creates a trap for exactly the kind of film Little Thomas is.
- Seven Hindi films and two international films open on October 23.
- Little Thomas had the date first, announced on September 11.
- Small titles such as Hanuman Ansh have built only in their third week.
Oza’s framing is simple: “What used to be the second Saturday for word-of-mouth films is now the third Saturday.” If that shift is real, the metrics used to decide show counts on day two are looking at the wrong weekend.
The business read
For media planners and marketing teams, this is a pacing problem. A film like Little Thomas may not need a broader campaign as much as a longer one. Promotions have to sustain interest into the second and third weekends, and theatre partners need a reason to hold inventory instead of reallocating it to the next opening title.
The release also raises a scheduling question for distributors: if a date is already crowded by the time your film is ready, does the “specific audience” argument still hold? Oza believes there is a niche for the film. The risk is whether that audience finds a clean showtime while nine titles divide the multiplex.
Source: bollywoodHungama.com
