Murder 3 Covers Cost, Jayantabhai Ki Luv Story In Losses | 1st Weekend Box Office

As predicted in this column last week, Murder 3 had a clear edge over Jayantabhai Ki Luv Story and that showed in the wide gap between the box office collections of the two films. It wasn’t as if the Bhatt affair took the box office by storm. However collections of this Taurani production were so low that it made the former look really good.

Let’s talk about Murder 3 first. One thing was a given that brand Murder would manage to bring some audience on the face value itself. This is exactly what happened as the film managed to score over 13 crore weekend for itself. While this is decent for Randeep as well as Aditi Rao Hydari (who hadn’t enjoyed as much luck with her London Paris New York last year), for Bhatts it has turned out to be a safe outing. Yes, the occupancy was a little lesser than at least 50% that one was expecting but a wide release ensured that collections still looked okay.

There are a few who opine that Emraan Hashmi’s presence would have added to the film’s fortunes. Yes of course it would have but then one has to look at the story and decide whether the film would have required the presence of someone like Emraan who has turned out to be quite a heavy weight today and warrants a much pivotal part in each of his films. Murder 3 was clearly an Aditi Rao Hydari show and hence ‘an expensive’ leading man would have unnecessarily added to the film’s budget, which could now afford to be under control. In fact it is this budget that will save the film since the collections have been just about average.

That won’t really be the case with Jayantabhai Ki Luv Story which has failed at the box office. The film opened to negligible collections and with just around 2-2.5 crores coming over the weekend, the writing is clear on the wall. Considering the fact that the film’s content was at least decent, some form of opening would have at least raised hopes around its eventual run. However with lack of screen space, poor show timings, non-existent opening, average word of mouth and passable reviews, the film is looking at an early exit from theatres.

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder