First weekend performance of latest release

There were speculations that 'Tom Dick and Harry' had pulled out of the race due to 'Pyaare Mohan' coming in the same week. Contrary to this popular belief, the fact was that the film had changed distributors' hands at the last moment and hence the postponement. That left 'Pyaare Mohan' as the sole release of the week and though one thought that this would help it get a better start, that wasn't indeed the case as the opening was quite ordinary everywhere. It was always surprising to see 'Pyaare Mohan' as being an under promoted film and the lack of fire was pretty evident when the film got released without any buzz. The reviews were scathing throughout while word of mouth has been just negligible. With much better hyped movies carrying good reports coming in the subsequent weeks, chances are less that 'Pyaare Mohan' would stand amongst Inder Kumar's long list of successful films.

Last week's movies

After the first week passed by, the status of 'Humko Deewana Kar Gaye' started becoming much clearer. It stayed in the same direction as was predicted towards the end of week one, and now comes across as a below average to average grosser. Earlier one had thought this may be the biggest opener ever of Akshay Kumar and if not that then it would make at least 10-12 crore in the opening week. Well, sadly that didn't happen as the film collected 9 crores at the end of week 1. Biggest numbers still came from Mumbai [approx. 1.25 crores] but Akshay has been on such an upswing that one expects nothing less than 2 crore from him in this territory for a biggie starring him in the lead role. Delhi was reasonable as collections came close to 1 crore but still not great. With 'Pyaare Mohan' failing to create any ripples with its release, there are good chances for HKDG to make hay in this extra week.

There was a shadow of 'Shani' on 'Shani' as it continued to make disastrous records for Karan Razdan for third time in a row. If collections of 'Umar' and 'Souten' were disastrous and bad respectively than 'Shani' was not even face saving as it opened to a miserable 5 lakh all-India total! It came, it was not seen and it was gone!

From the past

Though the makers of 'Shaadi Se Pehle' have been claiming of decent word of mouth helping 'Shaadi Se Pehle' gain some mileage with every passing day, nothing of that sort actually happened as the numbers indicate. The film fell heavily in its second week with poor collections of just around 2 crore. With this, the film still has around 50 lakhs to go before it touches the 10 crore mark. It will eventually do that in a week's time but won't move much further than that before ending its run. No wonder, the film's DVD/VCD are expected to hit the stands soon. The movie hasn't performed as per expectations at all and is one of the rare setbacks for an Akshaye Khanna starrer. The film would manage to gain coverage in some territories but that's about it.

'Saawan - The Love Season' sunk badly at the box office with more than 80% drop in collections as it moved from 1st to 2nd week. With only 3 crore total [that doesn't indicate any signs of improvement over next couple of weeks], the film has turned into a major loss for its investors. All theories of Salman Khan being the crowd puller of the masses have been vanquished, though he still gets the benefit of doubt as he only had an extended guest appearance in the film.

Just like 'Saawan - The Love Season', the publicity of 'Banaras - A Mystic Love Story' too has come to a standstill. Rightly so, because there is no point in pumping money for a film that doesn't even manage 10 lakhs in its second week. The film doesn't have any chances to even reach near 75 lakhs, let alone 1 crore. One of the biggest trade disasters in the careers of Urmila Matondkar and Pankaj Parashar!

'Being Cyrus' fell heavily and is now on it way out at the end of week 4. Till last week, the movie seemed to be inching towards the 4 crore mark [though slowly] but now that doesn't seem to be the case as just 10 lakhs were added to its last week total of 3.5 crore. The film may be retained in one or two screens so that it celebrates 50 days but beyond that it would be seen only by those who want to catch a movie in the comfort of their homes through DVD. 'Malamaal Weekly' did well to hold on well even in its 6th week [mainly due to not too impressive show of HDKG] and added another 75 lakhs to its total. Two more weeks to go and the film should easily cross the illustrious 25 crore milestone. Tremendous!

'Taxi No. 9211' still manages to make its presence felt in the Top-10 charts though the collections are merely inching its current total of 19.5 crore. Will it touch 20 crores? Chances of that are slim but then miracles do happen! 'Rang De Basanti' took another 50% fall but is still sustaining itself well to complete 100 days at the box office. Though the collections were just around 25 lakhs, they are only helping the film consolidate over 50 crores that it has already earned across the country.

In the future

Coming Friday would see one of the most interesting, keenly anticipated and well fought encounter at the screens as Mahesh Bhatt's 'Gangster' and Ram Gopal Verma's 'Darna Zaroori Hai' come face to face. Both look high on entertainment value though 'Gangster' has a slight edge due to hit music, high dramatic appeal and the makers' good success rate. 'Darna Zaroori Hai' looks interesting too but slightly appears to be the second choice of moviegoers. Still, it is a kind of movie that should gain tremendously with word of mouth if the product is good. Since both the movies appear appealing, the business is bound to be cut and a 50-60% opening for both is expected. If the films sustain at the same rate for the rest of the week, it should be a successful venture for both the film makers due to the medium budget.

Aishwarya Rai's 'The Mistress Of Spice' too sees a selective English release this Friday. But with zero hype, zilch publicity and some amount of negative publicity though scathing reviews and poor reports from UK [where it has been released], it gives minimal competition to the other two releases of the week!