Hits & Flops

Sunil Lulla,Managing Director,Eros International Media Ltd.,stated that the film opened to a phenomenal response and has managed to sustain itself at the box office resulting in outstanding collections. According to the trade website,Box-office India.com,Ready has come into its own with an approximate 120 crore nett. It has even bettered the collections of Salman Khan’s last hit Dabangg,which did a nett business of 16.35 crore on the second day of its release while Ready with Asin as the heroine,earned 12.74 crore nett.

Yamla Pagla Deewana,which released in the same week as No One Killed Jessica,also went on to become a huge hit. Starring Dharmendra,Sunny and Bobby Deol,it opened at 622 cinemas and collected 54.98 crore till the sixth week. The film was made at Rs 20 crore. The month also saw Kiran Rao’s directorial debut Dhobi Ghat starring Aamir Khan and Prateik Babbar. The film,however,did not live up to its expectations.

Aanand L Rai’s Tanu Weds Manu,starring R Madhavan and Kangna Ranaut garnered 18.78 crore in the first week and in the next five weeks it pocketed 38.68 crore from 781 theatres all over.

Made at an estimated budget of Rs 18 crore,the film performed well at the box-office particularly in Delhi,Indore,Bhopal,Kanpur,Lucknow and East Punjab and it also got outstanding rates for satellite rights.

Overall,2011 has been a mixed year for the Hindi film industry though it proved that comedies continued to work. The other films that made profits this year so far include Haunted (3D) and Ragini MMS. “The year saw a great opening with films like No One Killed Jessica and Yamla Pagla Deewana,” trade analyst Amod Mehra said.

2011 began with the Rajkumar Gupta-directed No One Killed Jessica starring Rani Mukerji and Vidya Balan. Produced by UTV Spotboy,it was based on the real-life story of the Jessica Lal murder case. Vidya Balan played the character of Jessica’s elder sister,Sabrina,and Rani played a reporter. The film met with positive critical and box-office reception. Siddharth Roy Kapoor,CEO,UTV Motions Pictures,which had four releases till June,had this to say. “While UTV’s No One Killed Jessica and Dhobi Ghat did tremendous business at the box-office,the production cost of 7 Khoon Maaf was on the lower side and commercially the film did pretty well,so our money was recovered. Thank You also garnered 45 crore net business.. Both 7 Khoon Maaf and Thank You came during the cricket season. As a studio,we cannot avoid releasing films for three long months and so that was a call that we had to take,” he said.

Vikram Bhatt’s horror film Haunted (3D) starring Mahakshay Chakraborty and Tia Bajpai opened at 928 threatres and earned a total of 24.60 crore in three weeks with 14.63 crore in first week,6.67 crore in second week and 3.30 crore in the third week. This was followed by Chalo Dilli,made at an approximate budget of Rs 5 crore,which earned Rs 9.08 crore from 550 theatres. Viacom 18’s Pyaar Ka Punchanama,made at a cost of Rs 7 crore,made Rs 13 crore at the box-office from 450 theatres when it released on May 20.

The much-hyped films like Dum Maaro Dum made at a budget of 20 crores and 7 Khoon Maaf (22 crore) did not live upto the ‘hype’. Small films like the Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra-produced Teen Thay Bhai,Balaji’s Shor In The City,Onir’s I Am and Amole Gupte’s Stanley Ka Dabba did not fare well. Even big films like Excel Entertainment’s the Abhinay-Deo directed Game did not garner much attention with a total earning of only Rs 7.38 crore.

This could be attributed to the period between March and May, when the cricket season was in full swing with IPL and Cricket World Cup and theatres did not see any major releases. This was mainly the time when small films cashed in on the lean period and about 20 low- budget films were released.

More disappointment came in the form of Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji,which was Madhur Bhandarkar’s first attempt at comedy. The 28 crore film did not get the kind of audience a Madhur Bhandarkar film normally gets though in the first week it collected 16 crore.

Sudhir Mishra’s Yeh Saali Zindagi,which opened at 475 theatres and earned 7.47 crore and Patiala House,that released at 1161 theatres earned 24.41 crore,both in the first week. “Compared to last year,the small films this year were small in terms of their budget as well as box-office appetite. However,the two major disappointments were Patiala House and Thank You,” Mehra said.

Jagmohan Mundra’s Naughty @ 40 and Yashraj’s Y – Films’ Luv Ka The End were other films released during the cricket season. Of this only F.A.L.T.U. and Haunted (3D) did above-average business. “2011 saw the longest spell of cricket with the World Cup immediately followed by the IPL. This affected the release of films but overall films have fared better than last year when many biggies bit the dust during the same period,” Mehra said.

Stanley Ka Dabba opened with 250 theatres but the film did not get the kind of attention it should have for a children’s film during school vacations. June saw some different films like Ready,Shaitan,Bheja Fry 2,Always Kabhi Kabhi but only Ready,as mentioned earlier,went on to hit the bull’s-eye.

Subhash Ghai made a special offer with his two small films,Love Express (on June 10) and Cycle Kick (June 17). Cinegoers had a unique chance to watch both the movies on one ticket. But the idea did not jell with the audience. The last film of the half-yearly period was Double Dhamaal whose box-office figures for two weeks has been 70.4 crore.

As the second half of the year began,there were much-hyped films like Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap starring Amitabh Bachchan,Raveena Tandon and Hema Malini and Delhi Belly with Imran Khan and Shenaz Treasury on July 1; the children’s film Chillar Party and thriller Murder 2 with Emraan Hashmi and Jacqueline Fernandez on July 8 followed by Zoya Akhtar’s multi-starrer road movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara on July 15 and Rohit Shetty’s action film Singham on July 22.

It remains to be seen if any of the films during the second half of 2011 will break the record of Ready’s collection. As Mehra said,“The year has been pretty cold so far,but there are some interesting releases for which to look forward.”

With inputs by Priyanko Sarkar and figures from Boxoffice India.com