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Special Chabbis (26) has turned out to be a special outing, and how! After last year’s Kahaani which had seen all around appreciation and terrific word of mouth coming it’s way, it is Special Chabbis (26) which has turned out to beflavour of the season very early in the New Year. At the box office though, this Neeraj Pandey film took some time to come on its own. Thankfully that happened sooner than later which means by the time the weekend was over, makers were breathing easy.
Though to begin with one would have expected the weekend total to be a little more than 25.75 crores that it eventually earned, the fact that it reached this level after a 6.50 crore first day says one thing loud and clear – The film has been accepted, and how! Also, this is more or less in line with the prediction that one had around this Akshay Kumar starrer being way too different from the kind of films that audience is used to seeing him in. It was expected that the film would take an opening of 50%-60% and though the opening day was a little lesser, a massive increase of footfalls over rest of the weekend did the trick.
This also means that this well made film should find good audience for weeks in succession as the word of mouth continues to grow. With an opening weekend of 16.60 crores, OMG Oh My God! had managed collections over 80 crores. Now it has to be seen that with a much bigger opening, what’s the kind of distance that ‘Special 26‘ ends up covering.
On the other hand ABCD- Any Body Can Dance threw in a very pleasant surprise as it opened on a very good note at the box office. With around 18 crores coming in, the film’s collections are much more than what one would have expected a day before the film’s release. Despite seeing a limited release and boasting of a niche subject, this Remo D’Souza film worked really well with the target audience and found some very good footfalls.
Though it was predicted that Special Chabbis (26) would have a huge advantage over the film on the opening day, the margin was much lesser to begin with. It is a different story that the Akshay Kumar took the lead in rest of the weekend but at least the opening day was certainly not in line with what was being widely expected. That demonstrates yet again that surprises can be expected when it comes to box office behaviour. Add to that the fact that the end product turned out to be good and entertaining as well further helped the film’s prospects.
If on a day before the release it would have been said that ABCD would do a business of around 18 crores in the entire week, leave aside a weekend, how many would have actually complained? The fact that it made quick moolah should seal the deal for this dance film.
Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder
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