Emraan Hashmi and Huma Qureshi in a still from Ek Thi Daayan Movie

Result? With the first week total reading as 26 crores, it can be pretty much said that this is lesser than what everyone associated with the film would have hoped for. Of course in the final tally it would still manage to read as a coverage affair due to low costs and selling involved. However one does expect better return for an Emraan Hashmi starrer.

For the actor though there isn’t anything to worry as his Ghanchakkar is all set to be a good success, courtesy eye catchy promos and good buzz that has started building around it. As for Ekta Kapoor, she has her eyes set on the biggest release of her career as a film producer, Shootout At Wadala, which is carrying tremendous hype and should bring in very good results. Vishal Bhardwaj though must be hoping that he does get a bona fide success to his name with Dedh Ishqiya.

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder

This action thriller Commando had a smooth weekend despite IPL towering over both the releases this Friday, the film sailed through the weekend with an earning of 11.15 crore in its opening weekend. On its first Monday, the film collected a total of 2.15 crores. The movie now stands at a domestic total of an approx of 13.30 crores at the box-office.

Still from Commando Movie

The film’s USP is its convincingly racy, well performed adrenalin rushing stunts. The film is expected to earn more this week, but the money collections might slow down soon enough keeping in mind the multi starrer Ek Thi Daayan which is releasing this Friday.

The film indeed turned out to be a surprise package for both critics and the masses. Interesting releases and the cricket craze that followed did not quite disrupt the film’s smooth upward growth. The film earned Rs. 1.50 crore on Friday, Rs 2 crore nett on Saturday and 2.50 crore nett on Sunday.

Still from Chashme Baddoor Movie

The film has so far earned an overall total of 36 crores and definitely expects more. While the concept of remakes suffered a major blow after Himmatwala fell flat, the King of Comedies David Dhawan proved his class by delivering an appreciable remake of sorts!

The Attacks Of 26/11 and I Me Aur Main Movie Poster

The movies continued to perform dull in the weekdays as well, taking The Attacks Of 26/11’s overseas total to $225,000 and I Me Aur Main’s overseas total to £ 125,000.

Mukul tweets @mksmukulsharma

Directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia, Saheb Biwi… is the sequel to 2011 film Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster, which was appreciated for its intense script, narration and performances.

Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster Returns Poster

The part two takes the story forward from where it was left in the original, which revolved around three characters entangled in a relationship that culminates in tragedy killing Randeep Hooda’s character, confining Jimmy Shergill’s to a wheelchair and letting Mahie Gill’s character become bindaas and powerful.

The sequel stars actors Jimmy and Mahie, who will all be seen reprising their roles from the previous film. They will be joined by Irrfan and Soha Ali Khan in the cast.

Said to be made on a budget of Rs.7 crore, Saheb Biwi… is co-produced by Dhulia and Rahul Mittra.

Dhulia candidly admits that his offering has the right amount of sensuality, which he feels is important to the story.

“There is sensuality, but in little measure. I feel that it is effective only like that. It (film) should have the right amount of sex and passion,” he said.

Actress Mugdha Godse will be seen in an item number for the first time in Dhulia’s directorial venture.

Releasing with Saheb Biwi… is Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga, which is Anshul Sharma’s directorial debut.

Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga Poster

Described as satire laced with humour, it targets inflation through a middle-class family living in a small city in north India.

The family, crushed under the burden of ‘mehngai’, tries to deal with it through an ingenious idea, not aware of the problems they would get entangled with as a result of the idea.

The family’s battle with the issues culminates into a climax that brings tears to your eyes.

Produced by Ashok Pandey, Saare Jahaan… features Sanjay Mishra, Pragati, Vishwa Mohan Badola, Ranjan Chhabra, Disha, Pramod Pathak, Zakir Hussain and Sitaram Panchal.

Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster Returns Poster

The film’s First Look made an impression as well and one expected a terrific promotional round to make the film piping hot around its release date. However, and surprisingly, this hasn’t happened though as the film hasn’t seen the kind of massive push that would have made it a must watch affair on the very day of its release. Of course (almost) the cult status that the first part has attained during last couple of years has ensured that there is good recall value for the film. Moreover there is curiosity to watch the film amongst youth as well as older generation. Still, one doesn’t see a bumper opening in the offering.

This translates into the fact that the film should open to a 30%-40% mark and then show gradual escalation towards the evening and night shows. A lot would depend on the word of mouth to be positive which should enable the film to show continuous growth over the weekend. Since there is no major competition in sight, it has an entire week to make moolah. All that is required is the content to be good enough.

Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga Poster

 On the other hand Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga sees character artists coming together, hence resulting in an ensemble cast affair. The film boasts of a topical theme (rising prices) and to give good credit to the makers, it has seen reasonably good promotion coming it’s way as well. However, one can’t expect audiences assembling around theatres in hordes to have a dekko at what the film has to offer. With Sanjay Mishra as a central protagonist, one can just expect that at best, the film sees a good all-India release for itself. As for the opening, it would be a pleasant surprise for all involved if occupancy goes beyond 20%.

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder

Jayantabhai Ki Luv Story, performed extremely poor at the Domestic Box Office as well as in the Overseas market. Rather, the movie saw a disaster collections at the international arena and didn’t even release in U.K. and U.S.A.. Box Office collections of this Vivek Oberoi starrer was just 35 lacs in its 1^st weekend at the Overseas Box Office.

Still from Jayantabhai Ki Luv Story and Murder 3 Movie

On the other hand, Murder 3 too couldn’t make ‘good’ business at the Overseas Box Office. However, the film managed to make comparatively better business than the former. Murder 3,did not release in Australia and New Zealand and collected average moolah from U.K and U.S.A. It’s Overseas Box Office total stands at 1.87 crores in its 1^st weekend.

Seems tough for both the movies to survive at the Overseas Box Office for more than a week!

Race 2 Movie Poster

The film is now a biggie for Abbas-Mustan after the debacle of Players. John Abraham and Deepika Padukone have further consolidated their position at the box office, Jacqueline continues to be a part of hit films while Anil Kapoor and Ameesha Patel have benefited from being associated with a commercial success as well.

Vishwaroop Movie Poster

On the other hand Kamal Haasan too has now seen his biggest box office earner since Chachi 420. Though it was a much more universal film and continues to find good eyeballs on satellite re-runs, Vishwaroop is a bigger grosser (at least on an absolute scale) with approx 11 crores coming in. This is marginally better than Rajinikanth’s Robot that had earned 11 crores after its first week. The film stayed on to do decent business over the weekdays though it would now face challenge from a slew of biggies arriving one after another.

David Movie Poster

David, after taking a poor opening and not really being helped by the word of mouth, saw a decline over the weekdays with hardly any collections coming in. The film netted 3.5 crores after its first week and would end it’s lifetime run around the 4 crore mark. It is a major flop at the box office.

However even bigger disasters are Midnight’s Children, Deewana Main Deewana, Listen… Amaya and Mai… which couldn’t even see the combined collections of 1 crore!

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder

Let’s first talk about David, a film that at least released as per plan but didn’t have much going for it as far as marketing and promotion is concerned. Add to that an overall content that didn’t catch fancy of many means the film turned out to be a big downer commercially. Yes, critically a select few did have good things to say and no one bashed it in particular. That was fair as well since the film’s content did have sparks to catch one’s attention. However that was diluted by the fact that the opening was much lesser than a bare minimum 30% odd that one expected. That reflected in around 2.5 Crores that came in which is poor.

David, Vishwaroop and Race 2 Movie Poster

In comparison Vishwaroop still managed a decent opening of around 30%-40%, which was on predicted lines, and saw some decent escalation over the weekend as well. A well made film, though not as spectacular as the hype created around it, the Kamal Haasan starrer benefited from the controversy as well since it’s collections were better than Robot in the Hindi belt. That’s saying a lot since Rajnikanth is a much more popular name up North when compared to Haasan. Though 8 Crore weekend is still not a very huge number, it is still face saving enough. All eyes are on how it sustains for rest of the week.

Other releases of the week, Midnight’s Children, Deewana Main Deewana, Listen… Amaya and Mai… have proven to be disasters at the box office. Not even finding a proper release for themselves, they were not reviewed by most and were criminally ignored. Though a select few reviewers who saw Listen… Amaya and Mai… appreciated them for the content, zero visibility factor pulled these flicks down in a major way.

All of this benefited Race 2 which, in its second weekend, boasted of collections that were one and a half times more (15 Crores) than the sum total of all new releases (10 crores) combined together. With over 90 crores already in its kitty, the film is now comfortably headed towards the 100 crores mark, courtesy underperformance of the newer releases.

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder

There is hardly any hope from Mai and Govinda & Priyanka Chopra’s Deewana Main Deewana. However, Vishwaroop and David have good chances to see a decent jump on Saturday and Sunday.

David, Deewana Main Deewana, Mai and Vishwaroop Movie Poster

Meanwhile Race 2 continues to lead the box office with major collections across the country. The question which remains is whether the new releases will offer any resistance to Race 2 on Saturday and Sunday?

MKS tweets @mksmukulsharma

The battle would be primarily between David and Vishwaroop, the Hindi version of which is actually releasing this Friday!. David has seen decent to good promotions around itself and seems like a quality product in the offering. However it’s genre coupled with the fact that it would be the story (and not the cast) which would result in audience footfalls means that one can’t expect massive numbers on the opening day. Anything more than 30%-40% collections would be decent enough for David to throw in a fight and stay in the ring for word of mouth over the weekend.

David and Vishwaroop Movie Poster

Vishwaroop is expected to see select release for itself. The makers/presenters should be happy if it takes anything more than 30%-40% start though it has only a week for itself to consolidate since there is a flurry of Hindi releases week after week.

This brings one to remaining releases of the week – Midnight’s Children, Deewana Main Deewana, Listen… Amaya, Mai…, Pyar Ka Jalwa and The Unsound.

Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children seems like an interesting film with a good ensemble cast but has been severely under-promoted. Arriving amidst a crowd, it risks getting lost. Govinda and Priyanka Chopra starrer Deewana Main Deewana is a delayed film that has been in the making for a decade. Even an all-India release is a challenge for it. Listen… Amaya has been struggling hard to make its presence felt but in vain. Ditto for Asha Bhosle starrer Mai. As for Pyaar Ka Jalwa and The Unsound, they are releasing without any promotion whatsoever and that would have a telling on their outcome.

In addition, these films would also face decent enough competition from Race 2 which is all set to enter its second week with a good show count.

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder

Race 2 now stands at a Domestic total of about 57.80 crores at the Box Office Office. If this drop continues further, Race 2 might find difficult to reach the much touted 100 Crores mark.

Saif Ali Khan in a still from Race 2 Movie

Here’s how Race 2 fared till date:

Friday (1st Day): 15.10 Crores

Saturday (2nd Day): 20.70 Crores

Sunday (3rd Day): 15.50 Crores

Monday (4th Day): 6.50 Crores

Total: 57.80 Crores

MKS tweets @mksmukulsharma

Race 2 Movie Poster

Standing at around 51.30 crores in just the opening weekend, the film is just a little lower than what Cocktail had managed in its entire week (55 crores). For John Abraham too, the film is all set to record the highest first week collection ever since his last biggie was Housefull 2 that had managed 63 crores in it’s opening week. As for Abbas-Mustan, the film’s superb opening has pretty much wiped the disappointment that had come exactly a year back in the form of Players. They have proved their stranglehold yet again over the medium of making slick movies and can be expected to make more films belonging to this genre.

While this huge opening should account for a good distance being covered towards the 100 crore milestone for the film, it has to be mentioned that as a final product, Race 2 did leave a little more to be desired at the least, if not a lot. Race was a much superior product in terms of the script and overall narrative and how one wishes that if only Race 2 would have maintained similar product quality, it could have covered a much larger distance in the final tally.

Akaash Vani Movie Poster

Unfortunately for Akaash Vani though there was not even a little distance covered as the film sunk without a trace. As highlighted in this column last week, everything depended on the word of mouth for the film’s eventual fortunes. However even for that the bare minimum requirement was for the film to be seen by a select few at the least, something that had made Pyaar Ka Punchnama a success in a long run. However none of that happened as the opening was dismal with negligible collections coming in.

The film was crushed by Race 2 onslaught and got totally sidelined despite boasting of some good moments. In fact its reviews too were decent to good with Nushrat Bharucha in particular fetching some good response for her performance. However that won’t quite count in the eventual outcome, at least as far as the theatrical run is concerned, since there is hardly any space for the film to find itself on stable grounds, courtesy onslaught of newer releases starting next week.

As for the third release of the week, Main Krishna Hoon, it went completely unnoticed as it wasn’t even reviewed by critics, leave aside being seen by the audience.

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder

With around 8.50 crores total in Week 2, the Imran Khan, Anushka Sharma and Pankaj Kapur starrer now stands at a domestic total of about 41.65 crores at the Box Office.

Imran Khan and Anushka Sharma in a still from Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola Movie

Here’s how Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola fared till date:

1st Week: 33.15 Crores

2nd Wee: 8.50 Crores

Total: 41.65 Crores

MKS tweets @mksmukulsharma

Inkaar Movie Poster

As a result, the first week ended around the 8.50 crore mark and that’s definitely not the kind of numbers that everyone associated with the film would have been hoping for. The film may just about manage to touch the 10 crore mark which means theatrically the film has flopped.

While Arjun Rampal would now move on to his upcoming multistarrers and ensemble affairs that are looking interesting, one looks forward to Chitrangada Singh’s moves here. As for Sudhir Mishra, he has an announcement up his sleeves and hopefully that would bring back the filmmaker who had been mighty impressive with his last few films, most notably Yeh Saali Zindagi.

Mumbai Mirror Movie Poster

Other release of the week, Mumbai Mirror, was totally ignored and that is definitely the worst fate that a film can expect. To be seen and rejected is one thing and to be not even given a chance is another. However it was the latter that impacted this Sachiin Joshi film big time as a result of which the collections cut a sorry figure. This Ankush Bhatt directed affair is a box office disaster. Ditto for Bandook which has proven to be a washout at the box office with negligible collections to talk about.

All in all, yet another week in January which has failed to show any spark whatsoever at the box office.

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder

The movie earned merely 70 Lakhs on its 5th day at the Domestic Box Office. Inkaar now stands at a Domestic total of about 7.20 Crores, which are quite a disappointing numbers for a Sudhir Mishra film.

Chitrangada Singh from Inkaar Movie Poster

With major Bollywood releases viz. Race 2, Akaash Vani and Main Krishna Hoon lined up this week, it seems, the movie is sure to lose a lot of screen space, that will ultimately affect the fate of the film.

MKS tweets @mksmukulsharma

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola earned 2 crores approx in its second weekend at the Overseas Box Office. With 8 crores collections earned in 1st week, Matru now stands at an Overseas total of 10 crores till date.

Anushka Sharma and Imran Khan in a still from Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola Movie

Looking at the current situation, it would not be wrong to say that this Vishal Bhardwaj directorial is finding really hard to survive in the International arena.

Check out how Matru fared on the Domestic front here: – Box Office Verdict 2013

MKS tweets @mksmukulsharma

Inkaar Movie Poster

Collecting merely 70 lakhs on its 1st Monday, the Arjun Rampal, Chitrangada Singh starrer now stands at a domestic total of about 6.50 crores at the Box Office.

Seems tough for Inkaar to continue its Box Office journey after Race 2, which releases this week.

MKS tweets @mksmukulsharma

Imran Khan in a still from Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola Movie Stills

Matru is proving to be Vishal Bhardwaj’s highest grossing movie till date, but will need to do better in its 2nd weekend to make some good numbers. The good thing is that Inkaar and Mumbai Mirror might not take a toll on Matru, considering they didn’t show any positive box office trends on their opening day. If, however, things take another turn on Saturday and Sunday, Matru might not see a very bright 2nd weekend.

MKS tweets @mksmukulsharma

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola and 7 Khoon Maaf Movie Poster

However this hasn’t quite happened and the film would be disappearing from theatres sooner than what one would have expected when it was announced first. This also means that Kaminey would stay on to be Vishal Bhardwaj’s highest grossing film till date though ‘Matru…’ has certainly done better than his last 7 Khoon Maaf.

One now looks forward to what does Vishal direct next. Of course one can well expect that experiment would be the name of the game for the film. However here is hoping that the messaging around the film’s content is much clearer well in advance (unlike ‘Matru…’) so that expectations are set better with the audience around what eventually unfolds on screen.

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder