‘Khan’ takes a terrible beating!

As expected, My Name Is Khan took a terrible beating at the box-office today.

The Rs. 90 crore film, which had a good run in the first weekend, faced a drop on Monday.

Collections in single-screen cinemas was more pronounced than the decline in multiplexes.

Raj Mandir cinema in Jaipur, which is a tourist attraction in itself, records full houses for all big films throughout the first week, but MNIK collected just Rs. 37,000 in the first (12 noon) show on Monday against a capacity of Rs. 72,000!

Whether it was Delhi, Lucknow, Jaipur, Bikaner, Jodhpur or Jalandhar in the North or Aurangabad in Maharashtra, the slump was noticeable everywhere.

The media circus, which saw members of the fourth estate going crazy about the film and giving it four- and five-star ratings, may have helped the film in the weekend, but the negative word of mouth showed it impact from today onwards.

Shockingly, even the news channels spoke about the film in such glowing terms that the gullible public was (mis)led to believe that the film was a far bigger hit than 3 Idiots.

But, of course, all the critics and channels have now had to eat humble pie when falling box-office collections are staring them in the face.

Twentieth Century Fox, which has paid Rs. 850 million for the worldwide rights of the film, would lose several millions in spite of the fact that its weekend in the Overseas circuit was exceptionally good.

The film about a Muslim youth, who sets out to meet the president of the USA, seeking a character certificate from him that he is not a terrorist, has been accepted with open arms in countries with a predominantly Muslim population but the response in other countries is not half as good.

Meanwhile, Ishqiya also dropped in its third week. With the opposition of MNIK, there was no space for any other film.

Rann, of course, had had such a terrible start and such poor reports that it is now preparing to be ousted from the cinemas all over.