It was a very poor weekend at the box office, what with half a dozen releases failing to collect even 10 crore between themselves. While Hawaa Hawaai did lead from the front, it was strictly on a comparative note as the collections were still low, despite a reasonably well spread out release. Koyelaanchal made some moolah from the single screens but was still very low. Mastram wasn’t any better either. On the other hand Yeh Hai Bakrapur, Manjunath and Khwaab didn’t have any numbers whatsoever to speak about.
All of this meant that with some decent word of mouth and generally good reviews, Amole Gupte’s Hawaa Hawaai managed a weekend in the vicinity of 4 crore. It would have to be super-strong at the box office with no fall whatsoever in the weekdays if at all it has to stay in the run. Ditto for Koyelaanchal which opened to mixed reviews and brought in only around 1.5 crore, with a very meager release at multiplexes. Mastram too had a similar response and a similar result to show (approx 2 crores). The other releases folded up within the 1 crore mark.
Manjunath, Mastram, Hawaa Hawaai, Yeh Hai Bakrapur and Koyelaanchal Movie Poster
As an industry well wisher and a hardcore Bollywood buff, one’s heart pains to see such abysmal run of films, especially when half a dozen of these decide to come together for no real reason, except for the fact that they do not wish to come along with a biggie. No wonder, while this is a Catch 22 situation, one just wonders if it would be much brave for a credible film to arrive alongside a biggie than expecting to crush a bunch of equally smaller films by hoping to beat them up all in content. Frankly, former could be a better sign as in case of latter, audience only gets put off by such a rush that hardly promises entertainment.
The only good news of the week was 2 States hitting the 100 crore mark with space for a couple of crore more to come in.
