First weekend performance of latest release

Thanks God, khatam hua yeh drama! Television viewers may be finally heaving a sigh of relief as RAMA RAMA KYA HAI DRAMAAA finally released in the weekend gone by. For last so many months, promos of the film were running non-stop at all music channels without any respite. However, good promotion of this weak film didn't really make heads turn and the film expectedly opened to a very poor response. This tacky film is at best a one week runner and would hardly find any takers as it moves into it's second week.

Ironically, no member of the star cast is overtly bothered about the failure of the film since practically everyone had distanced himself/herself from the project weeks back. Eventually it would be the producer and the director who would suffer most from the films' ultimate box office status.

Last week's movies

Slow opening and an ultimate settling down of collections for Rohit Shetty films continues with SUNDAY as well. Agreed that a 14 crores first week, especially in light of 700 cinemas release, isn't a great number by any means but it isn't disastrous as well, as made out by some sections of the media. As indicated by an escalation of collections over the first weekend itself, the film settled down by end of week but it still isn't breathing easy to be qualified as a 'safe film'. Coming to collections, the film was best in Mumbai with close to 2.5 crores coming in. Delhi too crossed the 1.25 crores mark while Ahmedabad was decent with 50 lakhs.

Though RAMA RAMA KYA HAI DRAMAAA isn't the kind of competition SUNDAY would be worried about in it's second week, the fact remains that word of mouth still hasn't caught up to an extent that a drop in collections would be negligible as the week ends. At maximum, the film may just turn out to be a no profit no loss situation for it's investors. The good news though is that even coming week is relatively easy for SUNDAY with neither MITHYA and SUPERSTAR belonging to blockbuster category, but more about that later.

From the past

The journey from BOMBAY TO BANGKOK couldn’t even take off, and how! The worst failure of Nagesh Kukunoor since HYDERABAD BLUES - II, BOMBAY TO BANGKOK completely vanished in it's second week with more than 95% fall. Sheer disaster, as mere 6 lakhs coming in second week means the film is truly wrapped at 1.5 crores mark itself. Brand value of Subhash Ghai's production house is bound to be impacted with the failure of this film. Nagesh Kukunoor though won't be worried much as his next release is with none other than Akshay Kumar!

HALLA BOL crashed further in the third week and is now on the verge of disappearing completely from theaters. A 80% fall meant that now the film would end at close to 16 crores. Last week got only 75 lakhs home hence bringing the total to 15.5 crores. Though there are murmurs around Ajay Devgan coming up with yet another National Award worthy act, it sounds overtly ambitious. But if one asks if this is one of the most worthy acts of Ajay Devgan, the answer to that is a firm YES!

For the first time since it's release, TAARE ZAMEEN PAR saw a notable fall though that too strictly on a relative scale. Any film would be rejoicing to see only 40% fall in any of the weeks but for TAARE ZAMEEN PAR, which has set high standards for itself due to an average 25% fall week after week, it still gets noticed. However, 3 crores more have been added to the film which has made TAARE ZAMEEN PAR a 54 crores earner already. From hereon, it would be a stretch for the film to touch the 60 crores mark.

On the other hand a 75 crores total for WELCOME is a given with the 6th week bringing in further 1 crore for the movie. At 74.5 crores, the film is continuing to find patronage though there are talks around the film's DVDs hitting the stands by February end.

In the future

SUPERSTAR and MITHYA are the two releases of this weekend. Common factor about both these films is the Bollywood background that each of them share. A medium and a small budget film respectively, SUPERSTAR and MITHYA aren't quite expected to eliminate the cold wave at the box office. Anything over 30%-40% opening for the two films should be celebration time for it's investors. Though the producers of SUPERSTAR have pumped in big money in the film's promotion, this Kunal Khemu starrer belongs to word of mouth category. Same holds true for MITHYA where Rajat Kapoor would be hoping for yet another BHEJA FRY.