For 'Table No. 21', indications were clear during the opening weekend itself that the film had in it to stay stable at the box office.

This is exactly how it turned out to be for this Aditya Datt film which stayed very consistent right through the weekdays, hence seeing collections in the vicinity of 1 crore each from Monday till Thursday. As a result, the film netted over 9.5 crore in its first week, which is a decent total indeed.

The film was fighting quite a few battles though. India-Pakistan match, cold wave up North and continued run of 'Dabangg 2' meant that it had to brush past quite a few challenges.

On the positive side it did get a very wide release and its immediate competition i.e. the three films that released alongside, were complete non-starters on the paper itself. As a result, the eventual outcome of this Rajeev Khandelwal-Tena Desae-Paresh Rawal film can be termed as fair.

Yes, given the content it deserved to find an even larger audience but it then it is very rare for a film to collect more when the starcast is relatively new.

This week there is competition from 'Matru Ki Bijlee Ma Mandola' which would be occupying a large number of screens. However 'Table No. 21' can hope to find certain segment of audience still stepping in for it.

A coverage affair, it would still march its way out of theatres with it's head high as it has managed to break the New Year release jinx yet again after 'No One Killed Jessica'.

Thank goodness for that because if it would have waited for another day and the only new releases would have been the likes of 'Rajdhani Express', 'Meri Shadi Karao' and 'Dehraadun Diaries', the blame game would again have been played around the New Year angle instead of the sheer content being questioned.