Bollywood missed out on a hattrick of great weekends with this weeks new releases – Shortkut – The Con is On, Morning Walk and Sankat City putting up a disappointing show at the box office. Hollywood's big ticket release Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opened big as expected.
BO Collections
Anil Kapoor-produced Shortkut starring Akshaye Khanna, Amrita Rao and Arshad Warsi opened on a dull note with just 30–40 per cent average occupancy on day one.
The collections in Mumbai were much better than rest of India. The weekend saw a slight improvement of 10–15 per cent all over but then again it wasn't anything remarkable.
Trade insiders claim the first day net collections of the film have been around Rs 1.5 crore. The weekend net collections are in the range of Rs 5 to 5.5 crore.
There were two directorial debuts Morning Walk and Sankat City and both were left ignored by ticket window.
Pankaj Advani's Kay Kay–Rimmi starrer Sankat City got the best reviews amongst the three releases but they failed to pull in the crowd as it opened on Friday to 10–15 per cent occupancy and on weekend it rose to just 20–25 per cent.
Arup Dutta's Morning Walk opened to zero to 5 per cent occupancy with shows cancelled on day one at many places. It would be a tough ask for it to even complete a week.
Transformers opened to 70 per cent occupancy in big multiplexes. The collections were huge on the weekend in the range of 85–90 per cent and the same centers.
Last week's big release Kambakkht Ishq as expected saw a drop in its second weekend collections. They were in the range of Rs 7.50–8 crore. It's ten day nett collections have been around Rs 43.50 crore net. The film is however doing well in single screens at many places. New York did good business on it's third weekend.
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Trade Talk
G-7's Manoj Desai says, "What the masses didn't seem to like about Shortkut was Arshad in a negative role. We had more crowds for Kambakkht Ishq than for Shortkut."
Veteran trade analyst Amar Solanki, feels, "The losses will be huge for Indian Films who hold the rights for Shortkut. They had purchased the film at a cost of around Rs 26–28 crore.
Going by its bad reports it seems impossible that they will manage to recover even half of their investment. Sankat City deserved better response but lack of face value and poor promotion seems to have worked against it. Morning Walk had nothing to excite the cine goers."
Solanki observes, "Though Kambakkht has seen a drop, it may cross business of Jodhaa Akbar and Dostana but will fall shorter than Ghajini, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Singh is Kinng in the final count. But given its high cost in the making it won't exactly be a profitable venture."
Distributor J Popat tells us, "Anil Kapoor has completed a hattrick of flops as a producer with Shortkut. His first production Badhai Ho Badhai which was a mega flop followed by the critically acclaimed Gandhi My Father which spelled a loss of over Rs 20 crore for Eros. One hopes his next production No Problems creates no problem for everyone involved."
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