The coming Friday will see the release of the Shoojit Sarkar directed John Abraham starrer MADRAS CAFE. The well made film is expected to open to good reviews though the commercial prospects are not on the same level.
Despite a limited screening, the new release of the week, Milan Luthria's ONCE UPON A TIME IN MUMBAI DOBAARA opened to an impressive response (85-100 percent) on Independence day. The opening day saw the film netting around 10.50 crore from India. The Akshay, Imran and Sonakshi starrer, OUATIMD, which expanded to 2500 screens on the second day (Friday), maintained the tempo (though with lower occupancies), but the big jump was missing. Saturday saw a fall and the film picked up again on Sunday. During the opening weekend, OUATIMD managed 40-41 crore (to be validated), which can be termed as decent but not good, given the star cast, banner and the involved costs.
What must be mentioned here is that the film does not have the repeat value or the extremely positive word-of-mouth that the first part, ONCE UPON A TIME IN MUMBAAI carried, and so OUATIMD will not achieve much from here onwards.
And with CHENNAI EXPRESS still doing very well, the equation for OUATIM DOBAARA becomes all the more difficult. OUATIMD is fair in the overseas grossing ?106,000 from UK and $273,000 from the US during the opening weekend (16-18 August).
Moving on, Rohit Shetty's Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone starrer, CHENNAI EXPRESS, downed the last record standing by getting the best first week ever as it collected 16 crore from Bombay (collections from other cinemas unreceived), 4 crore from Ahmedabad, 1.75 crore from Baroda, 65.25 lakhs from Rajkot, 4.75 crore from Pune, 81.65 lakhs from Nasik, 42.50 lakhs from Goa, 29.20 lakhs from Belgaum, 11 crore from Delhi city, 1.50 crore from Noida, 1.55 crore from Ghaziabad, 1.10 crore from Kanpur, 1.75 crore from Lucknow, 56.50 lakhs from Allahabad, 25 lakhs from Aligarh, 1.90 crore from Gurgaon, 40 lakhs from Faridabad, 12.25 lakhs from Kurukshetra, 70 lakhs from Chandigarh, 42 lakhs from Jalandhar, 22.85 lakhs from Amritsar, 20 lakhs from Ludhiana, 15 lakhs from Bhatinda, 12.50 lakhs from Ambala, 3 lakhs from Jammu, 5.50 crore from Calcutta, 42 lakhs from Siliguri, 33 lakhs from Dhanbad, 20 lakhs from Ranchi, 31.55 lakhs from Bhubhaneshwar, 1.65 crore from Nagpur, 61 lakhs from Jabalpur, 52.15 lakhs from Raipur, 1.80 crore from Indore, 27.50 lakhs from Gwalior (collections from 6 cinemas unreceived), 58.65 lakhs from Bhopal, 3.50 crore from Jaipur, 20 lakhs from Jodhpur, 40 lakhs from Ajmer, 14.20 lakhs from Bikaner, 64.25 lakhs from Kota, 24 lakhs from Udaipur, 1.50 crore from Hyderabad (collections from other cinemas unreceived), 62.50 lakhs from Aurangabad (collections from 2 cinemas unreceived), 4 crore from Bangalore, 25.25 lakhs from Mangalore, 25 lakhs from Vijayawada, 25.50 lakhs from Visakhapatnam, 33.50 lakhs from Madras, 13.55 lakhs from Coimbatore and 16.65 lakhs from Kochi.
Netting 152 crore (including paid previews) CHENNAI EXPRESS is already a mega hit, and given the second week progress the film is sure to end up as a blockbuster, or even higher! The film continues to set new milestones in the overseas grossing $14.25m with ?1,624,700 from UK and $4,014,657 from the US till the second weekend (16-18 August).
Meanwhile Shilpa Shukla's B.A. PAAS managed a decent performance even in the second week collecting 30 lakhs from Bombay, 5.35 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 1.55 lakhs from Baroda, 4 lakhs from Pune, 15 lakhs from Delhi city, 4.15 lakhs from Noida, 5 lakhs from Ghaziabad, 2.75 lakhs from Kanpur, 1.75 lakhs from Lucknow, 1.15 lakhs from Allahabad, 2.50 lakhs from Gurgaon, 4.65 lakhs from Chandigarh, 2.15 lakhs from Calcutta, 2 lakhs from Jabalpur, 1.50 lakhs from Raipur, 3.25 lakhs from Indore, 1.50 lakhs from Bhopal, 3.25 lakhs from Hyderabad and 1.55 lakhs from Aurangabad.
Adding another crore, B.A. PAAS has netted nearly 7 crore in two weeks from India and is an average plus.
Concluding with Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's BHAAG MILKHA BHAAG, the film continues to be in the race (despite huge competition) as it collected 50 lakhs from Bombay, 6.15 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 2 lakhs from Baroda, 16.75 lakhs from Pune, 1 lakh from Goa, 1.15 lakhs from Nasik, 35 lakhs from Delhi city, 8.65 lakhs from Noida, 3.50 lakhs from Ghaziabad, 1.50 lakhs from Kanpur, 8.75 lakhs from Lucknow, 10 lakhs from Gurgaon, 1 lakh from Faridabad, 4.65 lakhs from Chandigarh, 2.15 lakhs from Jalandhar, 2.50 lakhs lakhs from Calcutta, 1.25 lakhs from Jabalpur, 1 lakh from Raipur, 3.75 lakhs from Indore, 2.55 lakhs from Bhopal, 3.50 lakhs from Jaipur, 3.50 lakhs from Hyderabad, 15 lakhs from Bangalore and 1 lakh from Visakhapatnam.
Netting another 2.50 crore, the Farhan Akhtar starrer, BHAAG MILKHA BHAAG, has netted 107.50 crore in five weeks from India and is a super hit.
BMB has also done very well in the overseas (good in US) grossing ? 263,000 from UK and $1,626,000 from the US.
