While the world is claiming that the low opening of 'Dum Maaro Dum' has come as a shocker, this claim by itself is no less surprising. While the merits of the film would have been known only after its release, the film was always supposed to take an opening in the range of 30%-40% as predicted in this column last week. After all Abhishek has been going through rough times and the theme (drugs) wasn't the kind that would have enticed family audience in hordes in the opening shows.

Real test for the film was to begin as the first day came to a close and this is where 'Dum Maaro Dum' showed an improvement as well. However let's admit it; the jump wasn't the kind that would have suddenly turned around the fortunes of this Rohan Sippy film. As expected, Saturday and Sunday stayed stable hence resulting in a 16 crores plus weekend (also including moolah coming from paid previews) but still the jump wasn't remarkable enough to take the film past the safety mark.

The film has seen average to good reviews all over with no one either panning the film or going gaga over it. Ditto is audience reaction as well with neither anyone hating the effort nor placing it up there on the recommendation list. There is a disadvantage though for 'Dum Maaro Dum' that the suspense and the twist in the tale is already out which could impact the footfalls. Also, in coming weeks there would be a flurry of releases every week and though only a few of them are seemingly worthy enough, even two shows a day for these films would make a dent in screen spread for 'Dum Maaro Dum'.

The silver lining though is the fact that Abhishek Bachchan has been universally appreciated and in fact it is his sidelining from the film's plot which has come for maximum criticism. For an actor who was constantly being targeted with the accusation of 'why at all', it must indeed be heartening for him to hear the sound of 'why not'!

The other release of the week, 'Zokkomon' was completely ignored partially due to 'Dum Maaro Dum', partially due to IPL, partially due to it's genre and a lot due to it's poor promotion. Last minute call to Aamir Khan didn't help either as children still preferred to flock to theaters for Hollywood animation flick 'Rio' instead of this 'desi' superhero tale. In fact there were reports of shows being cancelled for 'Zokkomon' over the weekend due to lack of audience, hence resulting in total doom for the film. With bare minimum collections to show, 'Zokkomon' is yet another film for kids which is staring at the bottom of the barrel.