You know something’s wrong when the name of a film is changed overnight to accommodate a few extra letters. Dharma Productions’ erstwhile Good News became Good Newwz at some point during the film’s production. Looking at the trailer, it’s easy to understand why the makers would place their faith in numerology. Starring Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kiara Advani and Diljit Dosanjh – it would be a fair conjecture to make… that the film was conceived after seeing the blockbuster success of Ayushmann Khurrana’s Badhaai Ho.
Borrowing from what looks like a shelved Ayushmann Khurrana project, the humour in Good Newwz looks supremely dated. Speaking of dated humour, enter: Akshay Kumar. A gimmick of a premise about a mix-up of semen samples at an IVF clinic, owing to the same surname ‘Batras’, sounds like something the legendary duo of Kader Khan and Govinda would relish. Either that, or it sounds like a Priyadarshan film (from the early 2000s) starring Akshaye Khanna, when such a confusion of a premise would be hailed as ‘cerebral’.
Numerology and Bollywood has had a long and fruitful relationship. Karan Johar famously named all his films with the letter ‘K’ because he considered it good luck, until My Name Is Khan. Ajay Devgan changed his surname to ‘Devgn’. Bollywood’s superstitious tendency was parodied hilariously in Luck By Chance through Rishi Kapoor’s character, who played an ‘old school’ 90s producer… the type who referred to himself as ‘the maker’ and spoke about himself in third person. Good Newwz also looks like it is still stuck in the 90s… for some reason.
For 2019… Good Newwz looks like another piece of bad news for Dharma Productions after Kalank, Student Of The Year 2, Kalank and Drive. Watch the trailer here:
Good Newwz releases on December 27, 2019.
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