As expected, it was 'The Dark Knight Rising' which was the first choice of the audience over the weekend gone by.

The film opened on a tremendous note, saw some critical acclaim coming its way as well and in the process made sure that no other Hindi film that released alongside had any chance whatsoever at the box office.

However, it didn't really create similar magic (as was predicted) as 'The Amazing Spider-Man' despite being a better movie. There were two major reasons behind that.

First and foremost, it was released on far lesser screen count. Secondly, as a brand, Spiderman is known in B & C centres as well, an area where 'Batman' franchise hasn't really made much penetration.

As a result of this, these areas were relatively weaker and the results were also there to be seen as it was mainly class centres that saw big moolah coming in from 'The Dark Knight Rises', unlike 'The Amazing Spider-Man' that had scored much bigger at least in the opening weekend (before it started sliding down).

This means that 'The Dark Knight Rises' accumulated close to 17 crores in the opening weekend, a good but not tremendous number. However this was still more than 10 times what the combined collections of 'Mere Dost Picture Abhi Baki Hai', 'Challo Driver', 'Gattu'. Each of the three films has turned out to be a colossal disaster.

Not just were these films released in a very poor fashion ('Mere Dost....' didn't find a multiplex release at most centres while the rest found only a show or two each), they were even reviewed by most.

'Gattu' did some fair appreciation critically but that wasn't enough to entice audience. A mixed box office response to 'The Dark Knight Rises' meant that 'Cocktail' continued to find its audience over the weekend.

The film netted around 12 crores in its second weekend, hence resulting in overall collections of around 67 crores.

In the process, in a matter of 10 days, the film has surpassed the lifetime collections of Saif Ali Khan's biggest success till date, 'Love Aaj Kal'.

With no other Bollywood multiplex film for competition this week, the film is expected to show steady collections in days to follow.