It was a largely good weekend for Bollywood as around 60 crores came in. There were two new Hindi releases and collectively, Baadshaho and Shubh Mangal Saavdhan brought in footfalls across single screens as well as multiplexes. Of course, there was potential to earn a lot more since the two films were running at 4200 screens [Baadshaho – 2800, Shubh Mangal Saavdhan – 1400]. That gave theaters scope of roughly 120 crores to be accumulated over the weekend, had the two films been running to capacity. Since average occupancy was around 50%, Box Office had to settle for numbers in the vicinity of 60 crores.
Nonetheless, compared to how movies have been doing of late, it is still the case of something working out at the least. Moreover, the clash hasn’t really impacted the target footfalls of either Baadshaho or Shubh Mangal Saavdhan since both managed to bring in moolah.
Baadshaho was the bigger film and that reflected in the collections too which stood at 43.30 crores. The Ajay Devgn and Emraan Hashmi starrer has managed to get a start for itself and now it all boils down to capitalizing on this total. As long as the film manages to stay around 6-7 crore mark on Monday, it can aim for a stable Week One.
On the other hand, Shubh Mangal Saavdhan has its job cut out to be much simpler. Standing at 14.46 crore*, the film has done very well to keep audiences engaged right through the weekend. For the target audience that it was catering to, there has been entertaining in the offering that has resulted in good word of mouth as well. What has to be seen though is how this word of mouth translates into weekday numbers as well. It is always a tricky situation since a film of this scale and size needs to entice audiences well into stepping into theaters and a lot depends on Monday word of mouth to do the trick.
One hopes that happens indeed!
*Estimates. Final numbers awaited
Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources
