It was predicted in this column last week that Hasee Toh Phasee would take an opening around the 50% mark. However the footfalls were a little lesser in the initial shows, what with occupancy hovering around the 30%-40% mark. Things improved though in multiplexes of some of the major metros of the country with 70%-80% occupancy which evened out the scenario to some extent at least. Eventually, the first day collections were above 4 crores, though one did expect at least 5 crore on Friday. Expectedly though, Saturday and Sunday were stable with weekend collections to the tune of 16.75 crores approx at the Domestic Box Office.
If one compares it with Shuddh Desi Romance which had brought home 23 crore over the weekend, Hasee Toh Phasee is little behind. In fact its collections are similar to Yaariyan [19 crore] which had an all new starcast. Still, as a standalone film, this Sidharth-Parineeti film has earned a decent run due to its decent budget and controlled release size. All of that would ensure that this Karan Johar-Anurag Kashyap affair turns out to be a plus outing for all involved. Given the critical response, it could have covered greater distance though.
Hasee Toh Phasee and Heartless Movie Poster
Heartless was the other release of the week and it found some decent to good reviews coming its way. The collections didn’t throw any crores though and one waits to see how rest of the week turns out for this Shekhar Suman film which has seen a good comeback effort by Adhyayan Suman.
Babloo Happy Hai, as suspected, couldn’t see a wide release and the collections were minimal too with not much to write home about. It too saw some decent reviews with its subject (on AIDS awareness) being appreciated too. Now if only this aspect was promoted too, it would have been better for the film’s awareness as well.
On the other hand promotion for Ya Rab began too late in the day and it wasn’t really optimal when the film eventually arrived in theatres, and that too on a minimal screen count. This indeed reflected on the collections too which were miniscule.
