The Bollywood box-office is brimming with variety and hopefully some vitality this time after a rather quiet and cheesy week even as "Black" continues to mesmerize viewers.

There's a 'young' love story launching another star scion, a crime thriller featuring a known star-son, a love triangle featuring three middling stars and a psycho-thriller by a gifted writer-turned-director.

So which one will it be? First the new star scion. Sunny and Bobby Deol's cousin Abhay Deol makes his debut with new director Imtiaz Ali's "Socha Na Tha". Being touted as a 'different' love story, it brings back the rather in-demand Ayesha Takia who got noticed in 2004's last release "Dil Maange More" over and above the star-daughter Soha Ali Khan.

Interestingly, Abhay Deol is the first insider to make his debut this year. Going by the pre-release buzz, there isn't much to bank on for the new Deol on the block. For a love story introducing a newcomer, the music by Sandesh Shandilya is not quite what charts favor either.

Vikram Bhatt's "Jurm" looks like a stale project on every count. Even the title was used by another Bhatt (Mahesh) many years ago.

Vikram Bhatt's last release "Elaan" also featured the grossly misused Lara Dutta. In "Jurm", she teams up with Bobby Deol. The pair has already featured in Bhatt's "Bardaasht" last year.

As for "Zameer", the less said the better. A long-delayed project featuring the down in the dumps Amisha Patel, "Zameer" could be yet another setback for Ajay Devgan whose last release "Blackmail" last month was a complete washout at the box-office. Mahima Chowdhary who plays the other leading lady in "Zameer" is almost a forgotten relic from Bollywood's dreaded star system.

"It's a terrible situation for star-centric films. The audience is no longer interested in watching the same stale faces doing the same old things...not after seeing what Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee have done in 'Black'," says Roshan Singh whose theatre in Patna has been screening 'Black' for two weeks, and plans to continue.

"Initially I got the film only for the prestige of it. Though it featured the Sanjay Leela Bhansali-Amitabh Bachchan combination we never thought it would last beyond a week. After two days the film suddenly began picking up. And now the collections in the second week are cent-percent full! The viewers are responding to every emotion although more than half the dialogues are in English. To underestimate the audiences, to be presumptuous about the viewer in Bihar or Uttar Pradesh is downright foolish."

Singh says jaded films with over-worked stars are no longer acceptable. "That's why I'd rather continue screening 'Black' than replace it with any of the releases this week."

For all practical purposes the face of the coming week's releases has already been written.

The most interesting release this week is writer-director Saurabh Shukla's "Chehra", a paranormal psycho-thriller with the watchable pair of Dino Morea and Bipasha Basu. Shukla whose directorial debut "Mudda" last year failed miserably is hopeful about "Chehra". He sees it as a film far removed from the screaming monotony of the other films.

"Dino and Bipasha have never been more intense, together or apart. It's a story that hasn't been seen before," promises Shukla.

Claims apart, the one certainty at the box-office is that "Black" will continue to shock the cynics in the weeks to come.