Average opening for Friday releases

London,Paris,New York and Paan Singh Tomar cross '4 crore on opening weekend.

Two very different films released last Friday. While London,Paris,New York continued the trend of love stories being released through all of February,UTV Motion Pictures released its much-delayed biopic on real-life athlete-turned-dacoit Paan Singh Tomar. The latter ran away with the lions share of accolades but it did not help the films fortunes to a great extent. London,Paris,New York,on the other hand,gained a steady hold on its target audience of urban teenyboppers.

Both films opened very badly on Friday. Paan Singh Tomar saw a jump in occupancy from 20 to 60 per cent on account of positive reviews. London,Paris,New York rose on Saturday and Sunday and managed decent business, trade analyst Amod Mehra said.

Producers UTV Motion Pictures said that Paan Singh8230; collected 8216; 85 lakh on Friday,8217;1.4 crore on Saturday and two crore on Sunday. We collected

8216; 4.25 crore over the weekend,which is great for us because we released it in only 200 screens, a spokesperson told Screen. The movie was made on a budget of 8216;4.5crore and cost a further 8216; 3.5 in prints and publicity. The studio said that it is confident of recovering its investment with the sale of satellite and overseas rights,figures of which were not available at the time this story went to print.

London,Paris,New York also collected less than a crore on Friday but rose over the weekend to collect 8216;4 crore 7 lakh,producer Goldie Behl said. We made the movie in 8216; 7.5 crore and have already recovered over half the money we invested. We have worked hard on this movie and the love and appreciation from friends and audiences is really heartening to see, he said. According to him,the film hit bulls-eye with its target audience and has been doing extremely well in multiplexes in metros.

Confirming this,Prakhar Joshi,Head 8211; Programming,PVR Cinemas said that A-list multiplexes in metros saw the most occupancy for London,Paris,New York while Paan Singh Tomar has been appreciated by audiences in the North to a great extent. London,Paris,New York is a very urban love story that has found its audience while Paan Singh Tomar got a huge fillip from rave reviews. Both movies opened with occupancies between 20 to 30 per cent and jumped to 70 to 80 per cent by Sunday,which is quite good, he said.

Mehra,however,believed that only Paan Singh Tomar had any chance of breaking even. Amongother films,he added that Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya would also earn money for producer Tips but distributors in some areas would lose money. Joshi of PVR confirmed that Tere Naal.. had held on in the second week.

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Among English films,the Meryl Streep-starrer The Iron Lady proved to be a bigger hit than The Artist. The trade is now eyeing this Fridays release Kahaani to see whether Vidya Balans golden streak at the box-office continues.