First weekend performance of latest release

When a film maker gives one of the biggest disasters in the history of Indian cinema, and follows it up with another film of his releasing the very next week, there is always a very good chance of a bias against him. After rejecting RAM GOPAL VARMA KI AAG, audience was just not in any mood to give the film's director a second chance; and that too so soon! Now the ironic part is that DARLING is actually a well made movie with some of the best reviews for a RGV directed film in recent films (read SHIVA, NISHABD, and AAG).

Fardeen Khan and Esha Deol would certainly feel unlucky that one of their best efforts ever has gone virtually unnoticed due to a poor start that the film has taken. DARLING would now have to wait for the DVD response to help it gain it's due, just like RGV's other film KAUN has over the years.

DHAMAAL was expected to take a 60-70%. Well, it did reach this mark though only by end of Friday once the word of mouth started spreading around. The film has got good reviews almost everywhere but the result could have been excellent if the film could have maintained its rocking graph till the very end. Nevertheless, this clean family entertainer has held on well over the weekend and is gaining popularity with word of mouth.

A safe film, it should be able to consolidate in coming weeks due to lack of major competition. Sanjay Dutt gets another reason to smile since his release from jail, Ritiesh Deshmukh gets back to back success after HEYY BABYY, Arshad Warsi keeps his record neat, and Javed Jaffrey gets noticed in a big way while Ashish Chaudhary finally makes his presence felt in the industry.

Last week's movies

Enough has been said and written about the disaster that RAM GOPAL VARMA KI AAG has turned out to be. In fact this was perhaps the first time ever in my Bollywood box office tracking that everyone from audience to critics to exhibitioners to distributors to producer and even the director have acknowledged a film to be a 'mistake' and accepted it's failure unanimously after the first weekend itself. No talks of "my film is doing good in Jharkhand" or "evening show at XYZ single screen theater in Kharagpur was house full" here!

There was no way one could have said this anyways. Releasing at close to 600 cinemas, the film went on to earn only 7.5 crores and the way film has been discontinued in second week from most of the centers, reaching a double digit figure would be a miracle in itself. The film has been a colossal failure at all centers, big and small. While Mumbai saw only 60 lakhs coming in, Delhi barely crossed 50 lakhs. Delhi NCR stood at 35 lakhs while Ahmedabad was slightly better at 40 lakhs.

VICTORIA NO. 203 is another disaster of the week gone by and the biggest ever loosing film for Ananth Mahadevan who otherwise has been having a decent run with DIL VIL PYAAR VYAAR, DIL MAANGE MORE and AKSAR. This remake was doomed from the day its release date was announced since it was never a good idea to come in such a hurry with such minimal promotion. A below average product only worsened the prospects for this film which has barely touched the 1 crore mark at an all India level and isn't expected to go much farther than this. Mumbai saw the highest collections of 15 lakhs while Delhi only managed to cross 10 lakhs.

Best film of the weekend gone by, DHOKHA saw the worst box office fate of the three and has contributed to the hat trick of box office disasters. The film went completely wrong in promotion with none of the interviews by either Pooja Bhatt or Mahesh Bhatt generating any positive hype for the film. All in-house fight theories didn't entice the audience anyways and the result is that at 65 lakhs, DHOKHA has seen the lowest box office collections for Vishesh Films ever since one remembers. In fact even their NAZAR (Meera) had managed close to 2 crore opening week!

From the past

Sajid Khan was quite confident that HEYY BABYY would continue to be strong even in the second week in spite of AAG competition. Well, he was right, as the film took 45% fall and gathered another 14 crores to bring its two week tally to 42 crores. While Mumbai crossed 2.75 crores mark, Delhi was quite strong at close to 1.75 crores. Ahmedabad and Delhi NCR were at 65 lakhs each. The film is a clear super hit and is sustaining well across the country. Though there are around 20 films which would have released after it before the month of September comes to a close, it is still expected to prove to be tough competition to all. All said and done, Akshay Kumar would finally be having a 50 crore super hit to his name now!

On the other hand Shahrukh Khan now has another blockbuster to his name. No one, not even the most optimists of all, would have ever anticipated the kind of revenue CHAK DE INDIA is bringing in. One tends to run out of adjectives to explain the kind of phenomenal success that the film has seen with every passing day. This is the reason why there is hardly a 15% fall for the film in its 4th week when most films are busy packing their bags after spending these many weeks at the box office!

After 8.5 crores last week, the film has earned another 7 crores+ this week, hence seeing a minimal fall with Mumbai at 1.7 crores in Mumbai and Delhi at 1 crore. With 51 crores in its kitty and still doing excellent all over, CHAK DE INDIA is a clear 60 crores runner and is one of the biggest blockbusters for Yashraj Films.

PARTNER saw its first substantial fall (expectedly) in the week which took it to the 50 days mark. For the first time ever, the film raked in less than 1 crore (the collections were only 35 lakhs), hence paving the way for the DVD release. Close to 62 crores, the film is now making an exit after been certified as a blockbuster at the box office.

In the future

From this week on, there are no high profile releases till 12th October when BHOOL BHULAIYAA and LAAGA CHUNARI MEIN DAAG arrive. To begin with, AGGAR and NANHE JAISALMER are the films which hit the screens. Ananth Mahadevan had a success in the form of AKSAR with everything from the script to the star cast and the music working in the film's favor. Comparatively AGGAR hasn't built a similar kind of heat and hence one doesn't foresee more than a 30%-40% opening. It is a kind of film that mainly grows on word of mouth. On the other hand NANHE JAISALMER isn't a project on which even Bobby Deol may be putting his money. A delayed release coupled with zero buzz and hype, it has near to negligible box office prospects.