Bollywood is facing a lull period currently with no new releases really enticing the audience. Last week it was 'Aarakshan' which didn't really create much noise. Now the three new releases of the week haven't managed fair results either with even their combined collections accounting to less than 5 crores in the opening weekend.

It was expected that out of 'Not A Love Story', 'Chatur Singh Two Star' and 'Sahi Dhandhe Galat Bande', at least 'Not A Love Story' would fetch decent footfalls. Promotion had been decent, pre-release controversy eye catching and reports generally good. Still it seems that sentiments amongst the audience were not as strong as that of trade and industry. Even though it was predicted that the film would take an opening in the range of 50%, there was an ugly surprise in store with a mere 20% odd start for this Mahie Gill starrer.

Reviews in general ranged from fair to good but word of mouth was hardly existing since a very select set of audience checked out the film in the first place. Resultantly the film's first weekend was under 2.5 crores which is hardly encouraging despite the shoe string budget. Yes, as an overall product it would keep it's makers in green but theatrically it won't be able to sustain itself beyond a one week run.

For 'Chatur Singh Two Star' even that would be a challenge since Sanjay Dutt saw some of the worst reviews ever coming for a film of his in recent years. In fact this comedy holds the distinction of seeing the poorest ever reviews for a biggie in the current year, hence turning out to be a really sad story. For Ameesha Patel too this didn't quite turn out to be a kind welcome back on the big screen. With only around 1.5 crores coming in the opening weekend, this one is all set to be a washout at the box office.

Same holds good for 'Sahi Dhandhe Galat Bande' which was an interesting and topical film by Parvin Dabas but lacked any star value whatsoever. Promotion was patchy as well while release quite scant hence leading to collections that were just over 25 lakhs. A box office disaster, it may just manage some audience for itself on satellite since overall it is a fairly entertaining film.