JayShah’s Saturday Box Office Column – New York revitalizes business…

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

New York

Finally, a film has arrived which has done some strong business in the first week accompanied with decent to good word of mouth and decent reviews. New York is probably the first of its kind (for big film’s) for 2009 where most boxes have been ticked (to an acceptable level) and the net collections tell a good box office story.

It would be fair to say this Yashraj production starring John Abraham, Katrina Kaif and Neil Mukesh was aided by the strong audience appetite after a long dry spell. But what has supported the film’s performance so far is steady weekday business which is usually a good sign that the film has been liked. Also promos highlighting decent chemistry for the leads and a young flavour attached to the film ensured a good start especially with younger audiences.

Week 1 Fashion vs Week 1 New York
Mumbai 1% means that Fashion is 1% LESS than New York in Week 1

Mumbai 1%
Ahmedabad 44%
Gandhinagar 44%
Himmatnagar -582%
Jamnagar 46%
Rajkot -124%
Baroda -288%
Bharuch 65%
Pune -582%
Goa -32%
Nasik -45%
Gurgaon -789%
Faridabad 55%
Gorakhpur 20%
Lucknow -369%
Indore 31%
Raipur 0%
Nagpur -17%
Ujjain 14%
Sehore 17%
Jaipur -22%
Kota 40%
Guwahati 10%
Kolkatta -92%
Burdwan 46%
Hyderabad -206%
Bangalore -442%
Chennai -374%
Vijayawada -25%%

Fashion leads in 15 centres
New York leads in 14 centres

The cumulative centre total for the above centres for New York = 8.47Cr (ignoring Rajkot, Baroda, Pune, Gurgaon, Lucknow, Kolkatta, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai)
The cumulative centre total for the above centres for Fasion = 7.72Cr (ignoring Rajkot, Baroda, Pune, Gurgaon, Lucknow, Kolkatta, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai)

This means that New York is 110% of Fashion’s total (8.47/7.72 = 110%)

Using my own Fashion Week 1 total of 22.75Cr (midpoint), New York’s Week 1 = 110% * (22.75) = 25.0Cr

A similar exercise with Dostana & Raaz – TMC yields the following outputs;
Dostana ~ 24.3Cr (using my Dostana figure of 27.0Cr)
Raaz – TMC ~ 26.5Cr (using my Raaz – TMC figure of 18.5Cr)

New York 1 Week Total = 24.5-26.5Cr(Week 1) = 24.5-26.5Cr

Verdict – Strong Opening week

Considering the cast and theme of the film, the opening week haul is a considerable achievement. The timing of the release did the trick for the film with audiences hungry for a film. With Kambakht Ishq’s humungous opening, New York will take a back seat in the coming week but this is to be expected against such mammoth opposition. Hence, it is inevitable New York should be considered a plus film in the long run but its final verdict will depend on how well it can hold on – a total above 40Cr should be the first target and any verdict from above average to hit is achievable.

Past Releases

Paying Guests

Paying Guests fell hard in week two to record only 0.9-1.0Cr. With a 85% fall indicative of the film’s performance, Paying Guests is another flop for 2009 with two week collections standing at 6.9-7.5Cr.

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 : 16.0 – 17.2Cr (Hit)
Billu : 22.7 – 24.1Cr (Flop)
Delhi 6 : 32.7 – 35.0Cr (Flop)
Kisse Pyaar Karoon : 0.4 – 0.5Cr (Flop)
Siddharth – The Prisoner : 0.1 – 0.2Cr (Flop)

March 2009
Dhoondte Reh Jaoge : 7.5 – 8.1Cr (Flop)
13B : 7.4 – 8.2Cr (Flop)
Gulaal : 3.5 – 4.1Cr (Flop)
Jai Veeru : 1.5 – 2.0Cr (Flop)
Little Zizou : 1.1 – 1.2Cr (Average)
Aloo Chat : 4.0 – 4.7Cr (Flop)
Aa Dekhen Zara : 3.9 – 4.3Cr (Flop)
Ek – The Power of One : 4.3 – 4.7Cr (Flop)

April 2009
8×10 Tasveer : 11.5 – 12.5Cr (Flop)

May 2009
99 : 11.9 – 12.5Cr (Above Average)
Detective Naani : 0.6 – 0.7Cr (Flop)

June 2009
Maruti Mera Dosst : 0.2 – 0.3Cr (Flop)
Team – The Force : 1.5 – 1.7Cr (Flop)
Kal Kissne Dekha : 5.6 – 6.0Cr (Disaster)
Paying Guests : 6.9 – 7.5Cr (Flop)
New York : 24.5 – 26.5Cr (Good Opening week)