This week’s major release is the Bhatts’ Emraan Hashmi starrer, MR. X (3D), along with the mythological Punjabi film NANAK SHAH FAKIR as also Kalki Koechlin’s English film MARGARITA WITH A STRAW. It is expected that the Vikram Bhatt directed MR X (3D) will try to repeat the Bhatt-Hashmi magic of yore, though the usual hype is missing. On the other hand, NANAK SHAH FAKIR will appeal not only to its target predominantly Sikh audience as also other lovers of humanity. The last mentioned film, Shonali Bose’s MARGARITA WITH A STRAW will garner excellent reviews but the box-office prospects appear limited.
Meanwhile, last Friday’s T-Series venture, the Sunny Leone starrer, EK PAHELI LEELA, embarked on a good to decent note leading to a creditable weekend. Given its reasonable investment (17-18 crore) and the quite decent 15 crore opening weekend, and the fact that EK PAHELI LEELA is holding exceedingly well at the single screens, the film should prove to be a profitable venture for the producers Bhushan and Krishan Kumar.
The other release of last Friday, Paresh Rawal’s DHARAM SANKAT MEIN, garnered a lot of praise for its noble message and thoughts but has unfortunately not scored commercially, netting just around 5 crore plus during the opening weekend.
Moving on, the Hollywood venture, Vin Diesel’s FAST AND FURIOUS 7 continued its winning run during the extended 8-day week, netting in excess of 70 crore from India (for all versions). The film is all set to be the first 100 crore netter from Hollywood, at the Indian box-office. Indeed, FAST AND FURIOUS 7 has created history!
Meanwhile, the other release of the same week, Dibakar Banerjee’s Sushant Singh Rajput starrer, DETECTIVE BYOMKESH BAKSHY!, could not capitalize on a decent opening weekend (15 crore) as the collections were quite low during the weekdays. During the first week, DETECTIVE BYOMKESH BAKSHY! collected 3.50 crore from Bombay (collections from other cinemas unreceived), 40 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 11.75 lakhs from Surat, 9 lakhs from Baroda (collections from 3 cinemas unreceived), 4.50 lakhs from Rajkot, 80 lakhs from Pune, 8 lakhs from Nasik, 6.15 lakhs from Goa, 2.50 lakhs from Belgaum, 2.50 crore from Delhi city, 43 lakhs from Noida, 23 lakhs from Ghaziabad, 13 lakhs from Kanpur, 22.50 lakhs from Lucknow, 1.15 lakhs from Agra, 4.50 lakhs from Allahabad, 1.50 lakhs from Aligarh, 10 lakhs from Dehradun, 60 lakhs from Gurgaon, 11.50 lakhs from Faridabad, 2.65 lakhs from Panipat, 20 lakhs from Chandigarh, 5.75 lakhs from Jalandhar, 5 lakhs from Amritsar, 7.15 lakhs from Ludhiana, 3 lakhs from Bhatinda, 1.50 lakhs from Ambala, 1 lakh from Jammu, 1.15 crore from Calcutta, 1.25 lakhs from Darjeeling, 8.50 lakhs from Siliguri, 1.20 lakhs from Patna, 4.65 lakhs from Dhanbad, 2.15 lakhs from Ranchi, 10.75 lakhs from Bhubaneshwar, 2.50 lakhs from Guwahati, 15 lakhs from Nagpur, 15.50 lakhs from Raipur, 25 lakhs from Indore, 5 lakhs from Gwalior (collections from 2 cinemas unreceived), 16.50 lakhs from Bhopal (collections from 2 cinemas unreceived), 45 lakhs from Jaipur (collections from 3 cinemas unreceived), 1.50 lakhs from Jodhpur, 2 lakhs from Ajmer, 1 lakh from Bikaner, 4 lakhs from Kota, 5 lakhs from Udaipur, 65 lakhs from Hyderabad, 7 lakhs from Aurangabad, 1 crore from Bangalore, 3.15 lakhs from Mangalore, 2 lakhs from Vijayawada, 4.75 lakhs from Visakhapatnam, 2.50 lakhs from Madras and 4 lakhs from Kochi. Netting 20 crore during the opening week from India, DETECTIVE BYOMKESH BAKSHY! will be in the red (by a couple of crore) for Yash Raj Films, given the heavy 35 crore all inclusive cost, even after accounting for the non-theatrical rights and the overseas run. DETECTIVE BYOMKESH BAKSHY! is fair in the overseas (read US) grossing £55,000 from UK and $580,000 from the US, till the second weekend (10-12 April).
