Weekend Box Office Report: Independence Day: Resurgence, Udta Punjab, Raman Raghav

One expected a dull weekend at the Box Office, courtesy a plethora of small to medium budget films arriving and not quite creating much buzz. However, one never expected such a disastrous state of affairs where none of the new Hindi releases could leave any mark whatsoever. At least Raman Raghav 2.0 was expected to see a better outcome but the Anurag Kashyap directed film could gather just around 4 crore*. The dark drama didn’t really see many good reviews coming its way either and the word of mouth too was missing.

Junooniyat was so dull at the Box Office that its entire weekend was less than half the Day One of Pulkit Samrat and Yami Gautam’s Sanam Re [5.04 crore]. The film brought in just around 2 crore*. The weekend collections of 7 Hours To Go were even lesser at around 1.25 crore* mark. The film could just not get the kind of attention that would have helped it see some rise in collections.

A Scandall and Dil Toh Deewana Hai didn’t even find a good release in theaters and the collections were less than 1 crore. Rough Book was released in select theaters in Mumbai (the film is seeing a platform release) and benefited from block bookings.

Independence Day: Resurgence collected more than double of all Hindi releases over the weekend and brought in around 17.5 crore*. That said, one expected a lot more from the franchise affair and at least 25 crore were expected from the Hollywood affair before its release. Still, the fact that it is the only film to have managed some sort of audience says a lot about how audience totally rejected ‘desi’ affairs.

Meanwhile, Udta Punjab hasn’t really flown after its first four days. While it saw drops over the weekdays, the second weekend has seen a decline with just around 6.5 crore* coming in. The film currently stands at 55 crore* and while it has turned out to be a safe proposition, one expected the Abhishek Chaubey film to have enjoyed a lot better hold.

*Final numbers awaited

Note: All collections as per production and distributor sources

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder