Bollywood deserves better reception at the Box Office. Even though as many as four films released over the weekend gone by, the collections weren’t high enough to cheer about.
Veerappan was promoted quite aggressively but surprisingly the numbers weren’t high on the opening day. There was some escalation on Sunday though with the numbers touching 5.95 crore for the weekend. However, with the name Ram Gopal Varma attached to it, the expectations are higher. That said, since the feedback around the film has been decent, a good hold during the weekdays could work in its favour. The film needs to hold on to at least Friday levels for the rest of the week.
Phobia saw a lot of marketing and promotion through online medium and it was targeted at niche urban audience in major cities. The Radhika Apte starrer too opened on a low note, though the collections did show a jump on the rest of the weekend. Its collections stand around the 1.25 crore* mark. The film has been made at a modest budget but still, theatrically it needs to show some sort of business at the least. The reviews have been good for the film and the word of mouth needs to spread really strong for the Eros production.
Waiting had even lower collections, though good word of mouth allowed it to jump over the weekend and bring in 1.30 crore. It needs to stick well at the Box Office though so that the exhibitors show confidence in allowing it some sort of run in the coming week. Reason being that Housefull 3 is seeing the biggest release of 2016 which means majority of screens would go to the Akshay Kumar starrer.
As for Fredrick, it proved to be a non-starter at the Box Office.
*Final numbers awaited
Note: All collections as per production and distributor sources
Joginder Tuteja tweets @Tutejajoginder