New releases bite the dust, Neerja reigns supreme at the box office

As many as 9 films released in theatres last weekend and all of them tanked without a trace at the box office. Two films, Tere Bin Laden: Dead or Alive and Aligarh, were the bigger films, with a decent multiplex release, but the collections were very poor throughout the weekend.

A film like Aligarh also goes to show the complete disconnect between the critics and the audience, as the film which received excellent reviews from many critics (and even carried some buzz on social media), collected less than Rs 1.5 crore in its first weekend.

Tere Bin Laden 2 had to collect much more than it did, especially because the trailer had managed to find some appreciation and it was a sequel to a film that was liked by a section of the audience.

Unfortunately, when there was a film like Neerja running in theatres, the audience-choice for the weekend was pretty much a no-brainer. The 2nd weekend collections of Neerja was Rs 14.8 crore, while the combined first weekend business of ‘ALL’ new releases this weekend was less than 5 crore.

In other words, the ‘second’ weekend business of Neerja was nearly 3 times more than the first weekend business of films like Tere Bin Laden 2, Aligarh, Bollywood Diaries, Love Shagun, Dhara 302 and a few more.