Well this is an interesting week! And, hopefully, a sign of things to come. The big big films continued to underperform, but a small sweet film did much better than it should have. Seeing as we are entering a 3 month period of small sweet films and no big films, this is all good! (as always, numbers courtesy of BollywoodHungama and Rentrack. Full info available here)
Yeah, nothing is ever going to be as pun friendly as Tubelight. Even Toilet, when it comes, will be just too obvious, no scope for invention. And this week I have to make do with alliteration. (background on box office available in my big discussion post here, as always, full figures available at bollywoodhungama here)
Does that headline work? I debated it for quite a bit. I think it does. Anyway, Munna Michael isn’t even really the big news this week, because we all kind of knew it would flop, that’s not exactly “news”. No, the news is over in the Punjabi world! And a little bit Tamil and Telugu.
I’m gonna try to be good and get back on the Box Office report wagon. Because it really doesn’t mean anything unless you do it every week so you have context. Even if there isn’t that much of a story this week.
You know that feeling when you are at a party and everyone else is sharing a joke but you missed the beginning and aren’t sure why they are laughing or if it was actually funny? That’s how I feel about Commando 2. Suddenly it’s everywhere, and I have no idea what it is or why I should care!
Poor Aamir. I don’t know if it is even possible for him to surprise us at the box office at this point. Once you reach the limit of how many tickets are even available to sell, and they all sell-out, well then there is no where else to go! (figures are, as always, from Rentrack courtesy of BollywoodHungama)
Oh dear. I liked it! But apparently, not many other people did. Even worse, Aditya seriously over-estimated the American screen count. Not good!
Global figures are out for Dear Zindagi! Yaaaay! And it did best in North America! Which has no significance whatsoever because North America had an extra 2 days in the weekend! And on the other hand, had a lot of competition here! But being a hit in Australia, now THAT is significant! (as always, the figures come from Rentracks courtesy of Bollywoodhungama)
Bollywoodhungama has the global figures for the weekend! Woot! Shockingly (that’s sarcasm), Kabali did great.
More box office data! The first meta bit of this, is that there is just SO MUCH data available. Normally there is just one graph showing the global total for each film for a weekend. But today, there are 6 different graphs just about Fan. Clearly, people are really really watching this particular release.
Bollywoodhungama has the global figures for the weekend again. Yay! It’s my favorite part of the week! Well, not my favorite part (new release Friday beats it easily), but it’s up there!
Kapoor and Sons opened in Pakistan! What the heck? A movie with a gay main character is allowed to play, but Neerja isn’t? I guess it really is about patriotism, not religion. Or else Karan’s clever avoidance of actually using the word “gay” (or boyfriend or homosexual or anything else specific) paid off.
Everyone is pretty much in agreement that the big story of the global box office this weekend is that Punjabi films are breaking records. But the flipside of that story is of course that Hindi films are doing TERRIBLE.
Newer Box Office Report Available HERE!!! Dilwale still leads!
Okay, the 4 week report is out, and despite losing screens worldwide, and its steep drop off in the major Indian territories, Dilwale is far outstripping Bajirao in the global box office.
In fact, it has already beat Salman’s Kick receipts, and is coming up on Shahrukh’s own records, for Happy New Year and My Name is Khan.
All of which I predicted! (if you follow those links, you can see my previous posts). But, why is this happening? Why does the global picture look so different from the local?
Update: To see how I think the new Fan “Tu Nahin Samjhega” videos relate to this, check out posts here and here.
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