JayShah’s Saturday Box Office Column – Gulaal disappoints at box office…

Note all numbers are from Trade Guide

Reporting Methodology

1) New films most of the time where possible will be benchmarked against other films ‘in the same range’. The gross used for the older films will be one’s I have computed in the past
2) Films currently playing – I will always do some trending analysis. This is always against the ‘week before’
3) To compute subsequent week grosses I will always benchmark against ‘the first week’. Before it was always the preceding week, but Week 1 is always the best base because it gives maximum centres to use
4) Going forward I will show ONE example in FULL and show the results of the remaining scenarios

New Releases

Gulaal, Jai Veeru & Little Zizou

The run of small releases continues but the bitter fate fails to stop. All of last week’s new releases had weak collections overall though a couple of them still stand an outside chance of stabilizing in the second week.

After Dev D’s success at the box office, much was expected from Anurag Kashyap’s next Gulaal, but despite some strong reviews the box office performance is poor overall. The film managed collections of around 3.0-3.5Cr in the first week and mainly from big cities with Mumbai (0.76Cr) and Delhi (0.43Cr) collecting the bulk of the revenue. With occupancies low, it looks like Gulaal will end up around the 5Cr range.

Jai Veeru was lackluster throughout the week, mustering between 1.5-2.0Cr in total. The film starring Fardeen Khan stands little chance of improvement in the second week.

Of the new releases, relative to print count, Little Zizou performed the best. On the back of good reviews, the limited release drama collected 0.55-0.60Cr with Mumbai collecting over half of the collections. The audience response has been decent so the second week should remain steady.

Past Releases

Dhoondte Reh Jaoge

The comedy starring Sonu Sood and Paresh Rawal fell hard in its second week by around 80% across India. Collecting 1.2-1.3Cr, Dhoondte Reh Jaoge takes its two week total to 7.0-7.5Cr from India and it is a flop.

13b

The Madhavan starrer, a horror flick, held up just slightly better than Dhoondte Reh Jaoge – falling around 65% across India and collecting 1.7-1.9Cr in the process. The two week total stands at 6.7-7.4Cr and the film is a flop.

Delhi 6

Delhi 6 managed collections of around 0.6-0.7Cr in its fourth week to take its total to 32.2-34.4Cr from India. The Abhishek-Sonam starrer is a flop in India.

Dev D

Dev D remains steady in its sixth week, collecting 0.3-0.4Cr to take its total to an impressive 15.6-16.6Cr. The Abhay Deol starrer is a hit, the only clean success of 2009 thus far.

January 2009
Chandi Chowk to China : 24.5 – 26.2Cr (Disaster)
Raaz – The Mystery Continues : 22.5 – 23.8Cr (Below Average)
Slumdog Millionaire : 4.8 – 5.5Cr (Flop)
Luck By Chance : 16.3 – 17.9Cr (Flop)
Victory : 1.2 – 1.5Cr (Disaster)

February 2009
Dev D : 15.6 – 16.6Cr (Hit)
Billu : 22.7 – 24.1Cr (Flop)
Delhi 6 : 32.2 – 34.4Cr (Flop)
Kisse Pyaar Karoon : 0.4 – 0.5Cr (Flop)
Siddharth – The Prisoner : 0.1 – 0.2Cr (Flop)

March 2009
Dhoondte Reh Jaoge : 7.0 – 7.5Cr (Flop)
13B : 6.7 – 7.4Cr (Flop)
Gulaal : 3.0 – 3.5Cr (Poor Opening Week)
Jai Veeru : 1.5 – 2.0Cr (Poor Opening Week)
Little Zizou : 0.55 – 0.60Cr (Decent Opening Week)