Box office reception to 'Ladies v/s Ricky Behl' went entirely as per the script that would have been drafted in the office of Yash Raj Films. The film opened on an average to above average note, stayed reasonably stable as days passed by and would now end up being an earning preposition for all involved. Yet, it is strange how some out there are 'surprised' with its 'relative underperformance' and also the fact that it hasn't turned out to be a 'mighty entertainer'.

This is where these two myths need to be broken. First and foremost this Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma film was never an expensive affair to begin with. Pretty much in-house machinery was put into place for the film's making and the costs involved were bare minimum. With a reasonably big release, returns was the key criteria, not the footfalls and occupancy, which means even a 50% odd opening (which was predicted as well) was good enough to help the film sail through. This is exactly what happened and with over 16 crore coming in, the film was already in safe zone.

Secondly, when it comes to the overall 'entertainment quotient' of the film, it had started become clearer around the release time period that it was neither going to be another 'Band Baaja Baaraat' nor would it go down as one of the more memorable movies of 2011. This reflected in the pre-release campaign and general buzz amongst the 'aam junta' which means when the word of mouth and reviews started making the rounds, 'Ladies v/s Ricky Behl' was classified as an 'okay entertainer' that could be watched or given a miss at one's own will. It was neither a 'must' nor a 'bad' watch.

Keeping these two factors into consideration, 'Ladies v/s Ricky Behl' has turned out to be a gap filler affair for Yash Raj Films who would now be looking at their biggest year ahead with 'Ek Tha Tiger' and Yash Chopra's yet untitled film being released along with shooting kick-starting for 'Dhoom 3'. Meanwhile a decent start for 'Ladies v/s Ricky Behl' means that 30 crore overall total is a given that would fetch it an 'average' tag.

Other release of the week was 'Lanka' which opened to around 10% occupancy and didn't quite show much growth over the weekend either. It did fetch a few good reviews but that didn't quite translate into heavy footfalls.