First it was Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen and then it was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. For perhaps the first time in a long while two big-ticket Hollywood blockbusters have made a dent in the collections of Hindi movies for two weeks consecutively.
Last week the boy wizard cast his spell at the box office and managed to spoil the party for Vishesh Films' Jashnn and Rahat Kazmi's Dekh Re Dekh.
Needless to say the three releases of the week before that – Shortkut, Sankat City and Morning Walk – have ended up as box office disasters too.
Box Office Collections
Adhyayan Suman-Shahana Goswami-Anjana Sukhani-starrer Jashnn was made on a moderate budget of approximately Rs 7 crore. However, it opened to just 10-15 per cent occupancy on Friday across India. With a below average footfall for the weekend, Jashnn's collections settled at a paltry Rs 2 crore on the opening weekend.
Gracy Singh-Siddharth Koirala starrer black comedy Dekh Re Dekh (earlier titled Dekh Bhai Dekh) was a non-starter all the way with 0-5 per cent opening during its first three days. Many multiplexes have begun to discontinue the film in the first week itself.
Dominating these films completely has been Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
The film opened on Thursday with paid preview shows with 90-100 per cent occupancy across the country.
On Friday though it saw a marginal drop, multiplexes in big cities saw the best response while the Hindi dubbed version also saw good crowd on Friday.
The weekend collections rose to as much as 90-100 per cent. Despite the highly priced tickets, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince did exceedingly well at the Imax 3D dome in Mumbai. In its Tamil and Telugu dubbed versions released down South too the film has been having a great run.
Amongst last week's releases, Shortkut could not manage to go beyond Rs 7 crore net collections mark in its first week and might suffer losses. Sankat City too has grossed just Rs 50 lakh whereas Morning Walk has ended up with Rs 30 lakh net business. Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen has had a good first week and again a good second weekend despite Harry Potter's arrival.
Trade Talk
Trade pundits were never optimistic of any good returns from the two new Hindi release. So it came as a no surprise for them seeing their disastrous opening weekend collections.
Veteran trade analyst Amar Solanki observes, "I guess even the Bhatts had a good idea of what they were in for after they saw the first copy of Jashnn. That's probably the reason why they didn't market it the way they usually market their other products.”
“Adhyayan Suman, Shahana Goswami and Anjana Sukhani are no big names yet and certainly not 'lead material' stars who can pull of the entire film on their own or excite cine goers to buy a ticket for their film. As far as Dekh Re Dekh goes, it was never in the competition since hardly anyone was aware of its release,” he adds.
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