First weekend performance of latest release

There was a time in Bollywood when number of flops surpassed the films which went on to be hits. In 2008 it seems to have only got worse with number of disasters surpassing the flops! DHOOM DADAKKA and DON MUTHUSWAMI are two such disasters!

Frankly, did anyone even care about the films which released in the weekend gone by? Doesn't seem anyone actually did! Any why should they? When DHOOM DADAKKA appears to be nothing better than a wannabe comedy flick while DON MUTHUSWAMI making Mithun's Ootywood films like classics, audience had all the right reasons to believe that theaters were screening the films because they didn't have any other major film lined up due to ongoing IPL.

Sheer indifference coupled with poor quality of both the films meant that DHOOM DADAKKA as well as DON MUTHUSWAMI failed on Friday itself. It would be a surprise if the combined collections of both the films at the end of the first week come close to even 1 crore!

Last week's movies

Ok, so Mukesh Bhatt expected but didn't quite get 20 crores from the first week of JANNAT. However, over 15 crores coming in is still a very good number for this medium budget film which is now a HIT. The film has performed very good across all the centers with Mumbai fetching 2.5 crores, Delhi at 1.5 crores and NCR getting another 60 lakhs. The film has seen one of the best opening weeks of 2008; to be precise the fifth best when it comes to sheer collections.

While RACE is the biggest of all with 35.5 crores, JODHA AKBAR (25 crores), TASHAN (18.5 crores) and KRAZZY 4 (16.5 crores) have followed. The points to be noted are a) while all these films were mounted at a much bigger budget, b) they were also released at greater number of prints.

All of this does make JANNAT a much sweeter success and in the process makes it the biggest film ever for Emraan Hashmi where he played the central protagonist. While MURDER continues to be his biggest grosser, it had Mallika Sherawat holding center stage. In any case, the way this Kunal Deshmukh film is going at the moment, 20 crores total of MURDER too should be history in a matter of one more week.

From the past

BHOOTHNATH struggled but did decent enough in it's second week to somehow manage to sail through past the safety mark. Yes, the JANNAT factor did harm it's prospects but instead of crashing face down, BHOOTHNATH managed an industry standard of a 50% fall (the first week wasn't great shakes though) and got another 6.5 crores for itself.

Standing at 20 crores plus, the film has collected 80 lakhs from Mumbai and 75 lakhs from Delhi, hence succeeding in turning out to be an average success. This should comes as a relief for the first time director Vivek Sharma who should be now looking at gaining an identity of his own rather than falling into the 'Baghban' mode, as he did in BHOOTHNATH.

TASHAN has made a record! And that's of being the first ever 30 crore earner to be officially declared a flop. Into it's fourth week which is making it nearer to an end of it's theatrical run, TASHAN fell by 70% and earned another 1 crore, hence making it inch closer to the 31 crore mark. It would now be interesting to see when YRF brings out the DVDs of the film on stands. While CHAK DE INDIA remains as one of the biggest home video success for YRF, TASHAN may perhaps do a little better than the likes of LAAGA CHUNARI MEIN DAAG and AAJA NACHLE.

While KRAZZY 4 is now almost out of theaters as it completes 50 days at the box office in the coming weekend, U ME AUR HUM is doing slightly better with an expected run of least a fortnight more. The week gone by saw the film add another 15 lakhs odd to it's kitty with it's total crossing the 23.5 crores mark. While KRAZZY 4 is already out on DVDs, U ME AUR HUM should also follow suit in a fortnight's time. Meanwhile RACE continues to be in Top-5 with 15 lakhs more coming in. While the collections have crossed 63.5 crores mark, the film's DVDs are out too.

In the future

In the last weekend of IPL, two films have dared to release this Friday - WOODSTOCK VILLA and HASTEY HASTEY. The film is critical for number of newcomers like Sikandar Kher, Neha Uberoi, Nisha Rawal and Monishka. While one film is a light hearted entertainer, the other is a drama cum thriller. None of the two films is expected to take an opening which could be called safe and any film which fetches more than 30% in occupancy could consider itself as lucky!