'Aarakshan' was never supposed to start on a highly positive note, with or without the controversy surrounding it. As mentioned in last week's column, it wasn't quite a quintessential entertainer in the offering and despite big names involved, audience had realised much beforehand that it would have a relatively serious take to it.

All of this meant that the film opened to occupancy of 50%-60%, something that was always on the cards. The collections didn't show a massive jump either as the weekend progressed and eventually settled down to just under 20 crores. Of course collections would have been a little better at the least had the film enjoyed a full fledged release for itself. However another line of thought is that this loss can well be compensated by the gains that Prakash Jha and Co. managed due to all the hype generated by the controversy.

Eventually the first week would end over 30 crores mark which would be a decent response for this 'issue based' film. While this is way below what Jha's last 'Raajneeti' had earned, it is understandable as 'Raajneeti' had much more 'masala' appeal to it and was sold at higher prices as well. As for 'Aarakshan', it should eventually end its run around the 50 crores mark though for that it would have to thank an open fortnight ahead of it as well.

As for 'Phhir', there won't be any such advantage since it saw below average reviews coming its way with awareness quotient being on a very lower side as well. With hardly any collections to boast due to less than 20% occupancy over the opening weekend, the film has literally gone unnoticed. A dated film which found itself out of the cold storage after the success of 'Haunted', 'Phhir' can well be expected to be out soon on home video and satellite.