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Join UsBodyguard has smashed each and every record, that too, by huge margins. It swept the box-office in its first week of nine days. The Eid festival on August 31 (Wednesday) saw the film break all records of the first day when its all-India net collection crossed Rs. 20 crore. The first weekend (of 5 days) ended at over Rs. 85 crore, again a first. The first week’s net collection of around Rs. 115 crore is historic. In a number of big cities (other than Bombay and Delhi), the first week’s collection figure totalled over Rs.1 crore each, never before seen in Bollywood history. Although collections began to drop from Monday onwards, the fall was not as sharp, considering that the film had collected in the first five days (till Sunday) what many hit films collect in five weeks!
Undoubtedly, Bodyguard has become the fastest grosser of the Hindi film industry and although it will not touch the lifetime business of 3 Idiots and may not even reach the lifetime business of Dabangg, its brisk business has set a new benchmark in the industry for first day, first-weekend and first-week figures. Overseas too, it has done fabulous business, whether in the UK, Dubai or the USA. The film will give the all-world distributors and co-producers Reliance Entertainment a profit of nearly Rs. 40 crore! This is over and above the profit (of around Rs. 15 to 20 crore) which producer Atul Agnihotri must’ve made on selling the film to Reliance Entertainment.
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Of last week’s other releases, Bol could not pick up after a disastrous start because of lack of promotion and also because it was released in direct opposition of Bodyguard. Lack of face value also did the film in. In spite of a nine-day week, the Pakistani film managed dull collections.
Mummy Punjabi scored neither in its original English nor in its dubbed Hindi version. The film collected so miserably that it had to be pulled out from cinemas right after the first week – that is, if it wasn’t discontinued mid-week itself.
Anurag Kashyap’s That Girl In Yellow Boots found some patronage in the big cities, at least. It was rejected outright by the masses but a section of the class audience liked the film. Yet, its collections in the first week weren’t too encouraging.
Bas Ek Tamanna bombed miserably in its first week. The Murderer got murdered at the ticket windows right in its first week at each of the few centres it opened.
Aarakshan surrendered in front of Bodyguard. In its fourth week, the multi-starrer could barely face the onslaught of the new release. Singham, after netting a little over the coveted Rs. 100 crore in India in seven weeks, is now on its way out of the cinemas. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara has also now exhausted its run after 8 weeks.
Komal Nahta, the Editor of Koimoi.com, is Bollywood’s most trusted trade analyst & film reviewer. You can follow him on Twitter and check out his Video Blog.
