Akshay Kumar’s Jolly LLB 2 has performed fairly well on its opening day, collecting Rs 12.5 – 13 crore at domestic box office. The film was below trade-expectations, but that isn’t the right way to judge the performance of a film. The expectations probably came because of the way ‘Rustom’ opened last year, but ‘Jolly LLB 2’ was a less-marketed film with lower production costs.
Given the costs, the film has started well and now needs growth on Saturday and Sunday to put a solid weekend at the box office. A 3-day total closer to the 45 crore mark would mean the trend is excellent. The reports vary from centre to centre, at some places the reports are good while at others it isn’t upto the mark.
Side Note: The debate will rage on about producer inflation, but the official collections on Day 1 are in the range and quite close to our own estimates. From the single-screen centres that we tracked, Jolly LLB 2 has collected about 52% of what Shah Rukh Khan’s Raees collected on Day 1. The Rajasthan circuit has collected 68 lakhs, compared to 72 lakhs in the same circuit for Rustom.
The problem for the film has been the core Akshay Kumar fanbase, who haven’t turned up in big enough numbers on Day 1. It seems to be a catch-22 situation with the multiplex audience coming back in bigger numbers, while a film like Jolly LLB 2 which was expected to do well all over, simply hasn’t performed upto expectations at single-screens. Falling into the trap of the trade hype, Fox Star Studios have given a wide release for Jolly LLB 2, but unless the film really picks up at fixed rentals, it would be an uphill task to even recover the release costs.