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As was pretty much expected, none of the new releases could take a flying start at the box office on Friday. In fact, the collections fell short by at least 20% due to tension up North, especially in Punjab and Haryana. All of this meant that between A Gentleman, Babumoshai Bandookbaaz, and Qaidi Band, less than 6 crores came in.
Let’s talk about A Gentleman first. The film is the biggest of the lot and hence it was always on the cards that the film would collect the most. This is what happened as it earned more than the combined collections of Babumoshai Bandookbaaz, Qaidi Band and even holdover releases like Toilet – Ek Prem Katha and Bareilly Ki Barfi. However, what the film needs is further jump in numbers since it is an expensive film and hence needs to recover at least 40 crore from theatrical numbers (India as well as Overseas) to step into the profit zone. This means at least 6 crore need to come in today.
Babumoshai Bandookbaaz is yet another Nawazuddin Siddiqui film that has managed an opening in the vicinity of just around 2.05 crore*. His earlier solo starrers like Manjhi – The Mountain Man, Raman Raghav 2.0 and Haraamkhor have opened at 1.40 crore, 1 crore and 0.16 crore respectively, and this one is no different. The film’s content is nothing extraordinary which means one can’t expect a major jump in numbers in days to come.
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As for Qaidi Band, it is an all around poor show from the first show itself. There were hardly any footfalls for the film and with just 25 lakhs* in its kitty on Day One, the fate has been sealed for the YRF production. This one has to be the biggest ever disappointment for Aditya Chopra ever since he started making films more than 20 years ago.
*Estimates. Final numbers awaited
Note: All numbers as per production and distribution sources
Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder
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