2012 has seen its first surprise success coming from the least candidate of them all - 'Paan Singh Tomar'. The film had everything going against it. It's most recognizable face (Irrfan Khan) had never delivered a solo success. The film was delayed by two years. For half it's duration it had a Bundelkhandi dialect. The theme was about sports and dacoit, not quite the kind that make for mainstream viewing today. There were no songs. And to top it all, perhaps the producers too felt the same and hence pulled their hand away from promoting it.

However a miracle took place and as indicated last weekend itself, it was sheer word of mouth that did the trick. The film did 10 times the business of its opening day in it's first week, something which is a rarity when even doubling the weekend business over a one week run is a challenge for most films out there. However 'Paan Singh Tomar' sustained itself, and how. With the collections refusing to die down and industry coming out in full support of the film, this Tigmanshu Dhulia film ended up netting over 7.5 crores at the box office. With the second weekend showing good collections as well, the film is now a winner.

In the process the film that took the biggest hit was 'London Paris New York'. It opened on a better note than 'Paan Singh Tomar' and even fetched reasonably good reviews for itself. However the first choice for many turned out to be 'Paan Singh Tomar' which means even though the Ali Zafar-Aditi Rao Hydari film managed to sustain, it was on a lower note. With 6.5 crores in its kitty and trying to find it's way to audience heart in it's second week running, the film is trying it's luck. The only respite comes from the fact that the production costs are on a lower side which means losses, if at all for some, would be minimum.

Same cannot be said about 'Will You Marry Me?' that has turned out to be a huge disaster. With no real collections to boast of over the weekend, the film simply crashed during the week and found a premature end to its run. Since there are hardly any theatres screening the film in its second week, the film would struggle to recover even it's print and publicity costs.