Bad box office in general this week, which we all knew was going to happen.  Basically nothing came out this week, or last week, everyone is preparing for Housefull 3 and staying off the screens.

Rumor has it that Housefull 3 will release on a record number of screens worldwide.  That suprises me, because I know Housefull 2 was a blockbuster, but since then we’ve had Humshakals and Himmatwala, which followed the Sajid Khan formula and were massive flops.  But I guess everyone has faith in the Housefull brand, because from what Bollywoodhungama is reporting, all the distributors and films are staying away from these past few weekends, assuming that Housefull will take all the business on June 3rd.

Sarbjit is the biggest international release from the Hindi industry in the past 2 weeks, and it is doing really not well.  It lost out to a new Punjabi release, Saadey CM Saab, in America.  Actually, it lost out to a Punjabi and a Kannada, U Turn, which was second. A Punjabi film may have topped the American box office since I’ve started tracking these, I don’t remember, but I am pretty sure it is unusual.  And it’s definitely unusual to see a Kannada film that high on the American list.  It’s partly just a screen thing, Saadey CM Saab got 30 screens, but U Turn got 20, to Sarbjit‘s 23.  It explains why Saadey CM Saab won the weekend, but not why Sarbjit came in second.  At that point, it’s just on Sarbjit being an unpopular movie.  Oh, and the per screen for all 3 movies was pretty low.  It was just a bad weekend all around.

In the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, Sarbjit won the weekend.  This puzzles me!  Australia and New Zealand have been going Punjabi in a big way all year, and suddenly they drop it and go for an Aish movie.  Plus, Kaptaan, the other big Punjabi release, even had more screens than Sarbjit in Australia (12 to 8)!  Maybe the distributor there is sending Sarbjit to more crossover artsy type theaters and less regular ethnic ones?  Oh, and the per screen is still pretty saggy even there.

And then in Malaysia, Sarbjit actually beat a Tamil film!  24 has been out for 4 weeks, and came in second, Maruthu released the same weekend as Sarbjit and came in 3rd. !!!!!  Although, again, bad per screen figures.  So it’s not like any of them were huge hits this weekend, I just can’t see why anyone at all would have gone to Sarbjit.

At least in Canada, the Punjabi films dominated, so there is some consistency in this world!  Weak box office in general, again, but Kaptaan was on top followed by Saadey CM Saab and then Sarbjit bringing up the rear.