Entertainment bucks the trend

Entertainment

The week saw the release of writer Sajid-Farhad of films like Golmaal Returns, All The Best, Housefull 2, Ready, Golmaal 3, Singham, Bol Bachchan, Chennai Express, to name a few, making their debut into direction with the Akshay Kumar-starrer Entertainment. While they may have proved their mettle in writing comedy films, this was their first attempt at wielding the megaphone and they seemed to have succeeded in their attempt, says Akshay Rathi, Film Distributor and Exhibitionist. “Clearly the week has been dominated by Entertainment which did a little over Rs.40 crores over the weekend. It is pretty good for an Akshay Kumar comedy film on a weekend and it has sustained well on Monday, the first day of the week. An Akshay Kumar comedy is normally associated with the mass audience but Entertainment seems to have changed trends. While the masses came on Friday and Saturday, suddenly they began to disappear and huge chunks of children, women and families started pouring in on Sunday and Monday. It is unbelievable that even on a Monday, in a single screen at Raj Theatre in Raipur, the 3 pm show was housefull. Kids coming in groups or with parents translates into a better collection and thus helping sustain over the weekend. It is like an endorsements of sorts by the tiny toddlers. However, it was a pleasant surprise while being an additional boost to the film, courtesy children. Having said that, it could be more for the love for the dog maybe.”
However, trade analyst Vinod Mirani, begs to differ. According to him, Entertainment, which opened to a rather tepid response, continued to remain so; the film’s word-of-mouth publicity reports were not very complimentary either so there was little hike over the Friday collections on Saturday. However, the film has been able to manage a-not-so-encouraging Rs.30.9 crore. The film showed little improvement on Saturday but did better on Sunday, improving by about 25 per cent over its Friday figures.
While Koimoi.com registered Rs.11.16 crores for Entertainment on its opening day, the collection went up to Rs.36.69 crores during the weekend and trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted, # Entertainment has decent weekend, but weekdays are crucial! # Entertainment Fri 11.16 cr, Sat 11.53 cr, Sun 14 cr. Total: Rs.. 36.69 cr nett.
Distributor Rajesh Thadani is of the opinion that Entertainment had an occupancy of about 50 per cent pan India while Guardian of the Galaxy had an average occupancy. As for the collections of Entertainment, he says, it garnered Rs. 40 crore nett on Monday and will remain steady during the week.

Past is history

Salman Khan-starrer Kick, Mirani adds, has maintained excellent collections in its second week cashing in on the aftermath of Eid. The film crossed the Rs. 200 crore mark in its 11th week with a collection of Rs.49.1 crore thus taking its two week total to Rs.113.05 crore. Vishal Pandya-directed thriller Hate Story 2, which released on July18, comes to the end of its run after adding Rs. 20 lakh in its third week and taking its three week total to Rs.35.8 crore. While Alia Bhatt-Varun Sharma-starrer Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania has collected Rs.1.20 crore in its fourth week taking its four week total to a healthy Rs.76.4 crore, Ek Villain, starring Riteish Deshmukh, has added Rs.10 lakh in its sixth week taking its total to Rs. 102.97 crore. According to Adarsh, Ritesh Deshmukh’s Lai Bhaari which is in its fifth week is considered a blockbuster having garnered a total of Rs.34.35 crore, highest ever for a Marathi film and Kick, in three weeks, has made a grand total of Rs.223.94 cr nett.

Off the shores

Of the English films released this week, Guardian of the Galaxy got a good response in the metros but not so much in smaller cities like Raipur and, Nagpur. “That could be because it has new characters unlike Avengers, Iron Man, Batman and Superman which have become popular over time and they are familiar with. In Guardian ., there are a bunch of five new characters and it will take time for them to get popular,” said Rathi while adding that Into the Storm and The Hundred-Foot Journey haven’t really appealed to the audience pan India. “They have near about performed in the premium multiplexes of the metros and that is really not enough to deliver collections to write home about.”

namita.nivas@expressindia.com