Though many sections of the trade and media were of the view that Ram Gopal Varma’s 3D horror flick, BHOOT RETURNS, would mark a triumphant comeback for the once maverick director, but as we had said earlier, 3D is no guarantee for success, and that the film has to have merits as well to succeed. And so, the next edition of RGV’s highly successful BHOOT (2003), saw collections hovering around the 10-15 percent mark. The film did see encouraging collections at some cinemas of Delhi-NCR (over 30 percent). Unfortunately, the feedback for the film is poor and so no perceptible pick up was observed in the latter shows.
The other major release, SS Rajamouli’s MAKKHI, the dubbed version of his blockbuster hit EEGA, was just a shade better than BHOOT RETURNS, and could not emulate its phenomenal success down South.
In fact, things went as we had predicted in our weekly box-office report, and it was Rani Mukerji’s AIYYAA that saw a decent opening of 25-30 percent on an average with Mumbai circuit faring the best. The film can still make a mark during the next two days. Having said that, the word of mouth for AIYYAA is not as positive as last week’s ENGLISH VINGLISH.
About Makkhi, Meanwhile last Friday’s Sridevi starrer, ENGLISH VINGLISH, witnessed a phenomenal pick up on Saturday and Sunday as compared to the opening day and it saw stable though low end collections during the weekdays, and after netting an impressive 12.50 crore during the opening weekend, the film ended the first week with around 20 crore (including regional dubbed versions).
The best collections came from the Mysore circuit followed by Hyderabad-Nizam. The film is phenomenal in the overseas, especially in US and UAE. The Gauri Shinde directed venture would have fared much better had it not been for the magical performance of the week old but still hot, OMG OH MY GOD!
In the end we can’t help but mention Akshay Kumar’s Paresh Rawal starrer, OMG OH MY GOD!, which continued its inspired run, even during the second week, and has netted around 58-59 crore (to be validated) in two weeks from India. The film is already a super hit and has a lot of firepower left to go a notch higher.
