Sajid Khan’s ‘Humshakals’ has managed to perform well during the first weekend.
Despite the negative word-of-mouth publicity and reviews, Sajid Khan’s ‘Humshakals’ has managed to perform well during the first weekend. The multi-starrer comedy was rock steady on all three weekends, with Sunday seeing a good jump in the collections.
Meanwhile, Akshay Kumar’s ‘Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty’, which entered the `100 crore club last week, has reached yet another milestone as it crossed the lifetime collections of 2 States, which stands at `102.13 crore, and has earned `105.47 crore by the end of the third weekend, making it the second highest grosser of the 2014, after ‘Jai Ho’.
Comedy rules
Since in most cases, comedy as a genre works well with the audience, ‘Humshakals’ benefitted quite well on the opening weekend. The buzz around the film and decent hype created by the songs also worked in its favour. While the film earned `12.50 crore on Friday, the collections remained steady on Saturday at `12.59 crore, while Sunday was the best at `15.04 crore.
As a result, the film has become the fourth highest weekend grosser, after ‘Jai Ho’, ‘Gunday’ and ‘Holiday…’ “The film got a very good response, with almost all the shows running full. The occupancy stood at 100 per cent during all the shows on Sunday. However, there was a slight dip during the weekdays, since most of the tickets were available in current booking. Weekdays will prove to be extremely crucial for the film,” mentioned Manoj Desai of G7.
According to Gautam Dutta, COO – PVR Cinemas, the scene was a little different at their chain of theatres, where the occupancy was around 50 per cent. “Our expectations from the weekdays is around 25 – 30 per cent,” he mentioned. Trade analyst Taran Adarsh attributes the decent weekend total to varied factors, that includes the genre, a fairly impressive starcast and the absence of any major release since Holiday…
“While the reviews were outright negative and the backlash on the social media was indescribable, the paying public wasn’t as dismissive, which was clearly evident as the opening day progressed,” mentioned Adarsh. Trade expert Vinod Mirani adds that the film could have gained at least by a crore had the local Delhi-UP distributor not missed out on about 40 single screen cinemas.
“It happened since the exhibitors signed an agreement for both ‘Bang Bang’ and ‘Humshakals’. Conditions put by the studio were not agreeable to the exhibitors. Hence, these theatres did not screen the film.” On the international front, the film performed well in UAE – GEC, but didn’t get enough footfalls in other centers like United States of America, United Kingdom, Australia among others. The overseas total of the film is around `12.16 crore from 40 countries.
The ‘Holiday’ continues
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The Akshay Kumar – Sonakshi Sinha starrer continues to enjoy a good run. Currently in its third weekend, the film earned `1.04 crore on Friday, `1.92 crore on Saturday and `3.05 crore on Sunday, taking the total to `105.47. “We have currently alloted two shows for Holiday… and both were housefull during the weekend, which is good,” added Desai. Dutta adds that Holiday… saw an occupancy of over 40 per cent at PVR, which is almost close to ‘Humshakals’ first weekend.
While films like Fugly, Chal Bhaag and Machhli Jal Ki Rani Hai have been phased out, the National Award winner Filmistaan, with its limited shows, saw an average occupancy of 40 per cent at PVR. The approximate total at the end of Filmistaan’s third weekend is `6 crore. The fourth weekend for CityLights was below average, taking the total earnings to ` 8.24 crore.
Hollywood club
Last week’s release ‘How To Train Your Dragon 2’ is still going smooth. The film earned `50 lacs on Friday, `80 lacs on Saturday and `1 crore on Sunday, taking the total to `10.16 crore at the end of second weekend.
‘X-Men: Days Of Future Past’ continues to receive a great response, even in its fifth week. The all languages total at the end of fifth weekend stood at `44.72 crore. Dutta adds, “Both How To Train Your Dragon 2 and X-Men… had a good occupancy of around 50 per cent, whereas the Nicole Kidman starrer Grace of Monaco faired lesser than the other two.”
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On the global map, ‘X-Men…’ has touched a staggering $692 million worldwide, while the Angelina Jolie starrer ‘Maleficent’ is slightly behind, as it earned $522 million worldwide.
With Mohit Suri’s ‘Ek Villain’ up for release on June 27, along with ‘Transformers 4: Age Of Extinction’, the fourth installment of the highly popular franchise, trade experts are waiting to see how these films fare, especially its the first weekend of the Ramzan period.
Desai stated, “Last year, there were three releases in the first week of Ramzan, including ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’. Let’s see if the success rate is the same this year, especially with ‘Ek Villain’, since the songs of the film have gained tremendous popularity.”
Dutta adds, “There have been huge enquiries at the box-office for both the films. So naturally, our expectations are quite high.”
Sajid Khan’s ‘Humshakals’ has managed to perform well during the first weekend.