This week will see another interesting clash, with Madhur Bhandarkar's JAIL taking on Rajkumar Santoshi's AJAB PREM KI GHAZAB KAHANI. Given the buzz, innovative and eye catching promos, popular soundtrack and most importantly, the amazing and dew fresh pairing of Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif, one feels that APKGK will win the battle hands down with a good opening. But Bhandarkar has the capacity to spring a surprise and so his Neil Nitin Mukesh and Mugdha Godse starrer, JAIL, may just bounce back, though as we have said before, it will be a tough battle this time around for Madhur.
Last Friday's opening battle between Vipul Shah's Salman, Ajay and Asin starrer LONDON DREAMS and Sujoy Ghosh's Amitabh, Ritesh and Jacqueline starrer ALADIN turned out to be quite one sided in favour of the former, both in India and Overseas. For that matter even LONDON DREAMS did not have a big start at the ticket window, but the audience just could not appreciate and connect with ALADIN.
Released at 102 cinemas of Bombay-Thane (thru Raksha Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.) LONDON DREAMS had a weak opening. Outside of Bombay the film was released in Delhi-U.P. with around 100 prints (By Kapur Films) the opening was good/very good at some places but average at others. Trade feels that given the high budget of 60-65 crores, LONDON DREAMS will entail losses to its producers. Even its theatrical distributors will not have reasons to smile although the prices for theatrical distribution rights aren't unduly high in some cases. In the Overseas, LONDON DREAMS did less than expected business grossing ?142,722 from UK, and $207,964 from US, during the first weekend (October 30-November 1).
In case of ALADIN, the film released at 100 cinemas of Bombay-Thane (by Eros International Media Pvt. Ltd.) and saw a poor start. The film was released at around 70 cinemas of Delhi-U.P. (by Eros International Media Pvt. Ltd) and by and large the opening was horrifyingly weak everywhere. Trade feels that given its big budget of 30-35 crores, ALADIN will be a losing preposition for all concerned. In the Overseas too ALADIN has been rejected with a gross of ?66,289 from UK during the first weekend (October 30-November 1), while the US collections have not been disclosed.
All the three recent releases- LOVE KA TADKA, FRUIT AND NUT and BAL GANESH 2 were expected disasters. The worst outcome was reserved for LOVE KA TADKA followed by FRUIT AND NUT while the animated BAL GANESH 2 was somewhat better netting around 25 lakhs.
Checking out the Dutt, Akshay, Zayed and Lara starrer, BLUE, the film crashed beyond repair in the second week. Looking at the numbers the film collected 70 lakhs from Bombay (collections from 52 cinemas unreceived), 25 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 3 lakhs from Baroda, 6 lakhs from Rajkot, 2.10 lakhs from Jamnagar, 1.50 lakhs from Bhavnagar, 6 lakhs from Pune, 3.15 lakhs from Nasik, 4.15 lakhs from Goa, 1.65 each lakhs from Hubli and Belgaum, 95 lakhs from Delhi city (collections from 4 cinemas unreceived), 12 lakhs from Noida, 6.05 lakhs from Ghaziabad, 7.50 lakhs from Kanpur, 10.50 lakhs from Lucknow, 2.25 lakhs from Agra, 1.35 lakhs each from Allahabad and Meerut, 4 lakhs from Bareilly, 2 lakhs from Gorakhpur, 16 lakhs from Gurgoan, 5.15 lakhs from Faridabad, 5 lakhs from Chandigarh, 1 lakh from Zirakpur, 1.35 lakhs from Bhatinda, 1 lakh from Ambala, 1.50 lakhs from Panipat, 2 lakhs from Kurukshetra, 20 lakhs from Calcutta, 1.05 lakhs from Guwahati, 6 lakhs from Nagpur, 2.65 lakhs from Jabalpur, 4 lakhs from Raipur, 7.25 lakhs from Indore, 2 lakhs from Gwalior, 3 lakhs from Bhopal, 21 lakhs from Jaipur, 1.15 lakhs from Jodhpur, 1.35 lakhs from Kota, 30 lakhs from Hyderabad, 1.50 lakhs each from Aurangabad and Gulbarga, 13 lakhs from Bangalore, 2.25 lakhs from Mangalore, 1.45 lakhs from Davangere, 1.15 lakhs from Vijaywada and 2.15 lakhs from Madras. Adding another 8.50 crores, BLUE has netted around 40.50 crores in two weeks from India and will struggle to even recover its costs! The film has done reasonably well in the UK grossing ?440,621 up to the third weekend (October 30-November 1) while the US collections have not been disclosed.
Meanwhile Rohit Shetty's ALL THE BEST maintained well during the second weekend but dropped hard after that. The film collected 3.25 crores from Bombay, 95 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 50 lakhs from Surat, 5 lakhs from Nandiad, 6 lakhs from Anand, 36 lakhs from Baroda, 3.35 lakhs from Navsari, 6.15 lakhs from Bharuch, 4.10 lakhs from Himmatnagar, 3 lakhs from Palanpur, 25 lakhs from Rajkot, 6 lakhs from Jamnagar, 9 lakhs from Bhavnagar, 2 lakhs from Porbandar, 55 lakhs from Pune, 5 lakhs from Kolhapur, 3.15 lakhs from Solapur, 2.30 lakhs from Sangli, 11 lakhs each from Nasik and Goa, 2 lakhs from Hubli, 4 lakhs from Belgaum, 1.30 crores from Delhi city, 20 lakhs from Noida, 10 lakhs from Ghaziabad, 9.50 lakhs from Kanpur, 18 lakhs from Lucknow, 4 lakhs from Agra, 1.50 lakhs each from Allahabad and Bareilly, 2.35 lakhs from Meerut, 25 lakhs from Gurgaon, 10.35 lakhs from Faridabad, 9 lakhs from Chandigarh, 2 lakhs each from Zirakpur and Panipat, 3 lakhs from Ambala, 30 lakhs from Calcutta, 2 lakhs from Guwahati, 20 lakhs from Nagpur, 2.65 lakhs from Amravati, 9 lakhs from Raipur, 21 lakhs from Indore, 3 lakhs each from Gwalior and Bhopal, 20 lakhs from Jaipur, 4.25 lakhs from Jodhpur, 3 lakhs from Bikaner, 2 lakhs from Kota, 35 lakhs from Hyderabad, 1.25 lakhs from Aurangabad, 2.15 lakhs from Nanded, 15 lakhs from Bangalore, 4.35 lakhs from Mangalore, 1.25 lakhs from Davangere and 1.75 lakhs from Coimbatore. The Dutt, Ajay, Fardeen and Bipasha starrer added another 13.50 crores and has so far netted close to 36.50 crores in two weeks from India. ALL THE BEST is now an average plus in India that will improve its status further. The film though has been out rightly rejected in the Overseas, with a poor gross of ?104,686 up to the third weekend (October 30-November 1) from UK and an equally poor $120,713 till the end of its run from US.
Moving on to Prem Soni's MAIN AURR MRS. KHANNA, the collections went from poor to pathetic. The film collected 5 lakhs from Bombay city (collections from 11 cinemas unreceived), 5.35 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 4.55 lakhs from Delhi city, 1.05 lakhs from Lucknow, 2.25 lakhs from Jabalpur, 1 lakh from Jaipur and 1.50 lakhs from Hyderabad. Adding another 50 lakhs, MAIN AURR MRS. KHANNA has netted a poor 8.50 crores in two weeks from India and is a washout. The Salman, Sohail and Kareena starrer has also failed in the overseas grossing ?216,552 from UK and $196,203 from US up to the third weekend (October 30-November 1).
Closing this week's column with Karan Johar's Ayan Mukerji directed WAKE UP SID, the film improved over its last week's performance (as we had predicted) and collected 25 lakhs from Bombay, 5.20 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 1 lakh from Baroda, 3 lakhs from Pune, 1.15 lakhs from Goa, 20 lakhs from Delhi city, 4.10 lakhs from Noida, 1.35 lakhs from Ghaziabad, 1.65 lakhs from Lucknow, 6 lakhs from Gurgaon, 1.25 lakhs from Faridabad, 1.50 lakhs from Chandigarh, 7 lakhs from Calcutta, 1.10 lakhs from Nagpur, 2 lakhs from Jabalpur, 1.35 lakhs from Durg, 2 lakhs from Indore, 5.15 lakhs from Hyderabad, 7 lakhs from Bangalore and 1.25 lakhs from Mangalore. Adding a further 1.75 crore, WAKE UP SIDE has netted around 27.75 crores in four weeks from India. The Ranbir-Konkana starrer has also done very well in the overseas grossing ? 250,757 from UK and $717,977 from US, up to the fifth weekend (October 30-November 1). WAKE UP SID is now a semi-hit for its worldwide distributor UTV.