Sunday figures are out, yay!  Interestingly, it went down and then up again.  Cricket?  Holidays?  Word of mouth?  Who knows!

I already reported, first day figures on Friday were 19.2 (almost as good as first day for Dilwale).  It went down quite a bit on Saturday, 15.4.  And then it went up again on Sunday, 18.43.  But, why?!?!?

I could see a few reasons.  First, from tracking these opening weekend figures for a while now, it always goes up on Sunday.  No idea why!  In America, it would go down on Sunday, because people have work the next day, and go to church in the morning.  In India, is it more likely to work a half day on Saturdays?  Or do a sport-y thing instead?  Is that it?

But going down between Friday and Saturday is interesting.  That is not the pattern.  I could see three possible reasons for this, it’s probably a combination of them all:

1. IPL match on Saturday, more people stayed home to watch it.

2. People came on Friday just because of the name recognition with no idea what the film was actually like, and were turned off by the lack of songs, romance, etc., so didn’t come back on Saturday.

3. Related to 2, people came on Friday just because of the name recognition, were turned off, and then the word of mouth was good enough that the box office plumped up a little on Sunday.

But yeah, most likely it is a combination.  Friday’s crowd came just because it was a Shahrukh movie.  People were less excited on Saturday, after they learned what a “hatke” kind of movie it was, and were more willing to stay home and watch Cricket instead.  And then on Sunday, there was no Cricket and the people who were actually interested in what they heard started coming around.

Overall, it was a very good opening, especially in Pakistan apparently, where it set a bunch of records.  Not quite all time record breaking, but not embarressing.  I’ll be curious how it runs in the next few weeks, if it keeps picking up reflecting Sunday, or drops off reflecting Saturday.