Paa, produced by the Bachchan’s under their AB Corp banner, opened to a good response from the audiences on Friday. The business though, as expected was average on the opening day but has picked up all over on Saturday due to positive reviews and strong word of mouth.
Occupancy was best at major cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. The first day (Friday) nett is around 2 – 2.5 crores, while Saturday and Sunday were approximately in the 4 – 5 crore range.
Single screens too witnessed a hike in ticket sales on Saturday and Sunday, with occupancy ranging from 20% for the morning shows to 60% for the evening shows. Note – These figures are from some of the single screen theaters we contacted in Bangalore, Mumbai and a few other towns / cities.
For a film released on around 525 screens, these are good numbers. The curiosity to watch Amitabh Bachchan as Auro, the amazingly positive reviews and excellent word-of-mouth should all help the film easily recover its investment by the end of week 1.
Day 1 – 2 crores
Day 2 – 3.5 crores
Day 3 – 5.5 crores
First Weekend: 11 crores
Day 4 (Monday) – 2 crores
Paa has picked up big time, almost doubling its Friday collections on Saturday and tripling on Sunday! Such spike in business is a rarity these days. The Monday collections are expected to be better than Friday and the movie is expected to remain strong at the box office for the rest of the weekdays.
Content is the king!
Week 1: 20 crores (expected)
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Radio starring Himesh Reshammiya has been rejected all over. The opening is in the range of 10 – 20%, even the single screens are extremely poor. With poor reports, the film should be out of theaters by the end of the week.
Box office verdict – FLOP
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In other box office news, De Dana Dan has failed to pick up on its second Friday. Still running at around 800 screens in India (more than Paa), the business of the Akshay Kumar film continues to remain on the lower side. Friday is expected to be around 1.5 – 2 crores, which takes its total to 36 crores. Still, a long way to go for HIT status.