A 50% fall in collections on a per week basis is considered healthy for a film which opens well at the box office. The biggest of the hits/superhits and the best of the films see such drop in collections but there are no complaints whatsoever since this is considered to be absolutely ‘normal’.
But what does one say about a film which does as much as 1.5 times the business of an ‘all time opener’ in it’s first week? How much of the fall is ‘normal’ enough?
After making so much of moolah in it’s first week does it still have to follow an industry standard or a 50% fall?
Should there be a ‘concession’ of sorts because of high revenues in the first week and hence a 60% fall should be considered decent enough?
And in the ‘unbelievable’ scenario of a film actually seeing a sub-50% fall, should it be considered simply ‘abnormal’?
Well, this is how the performance of GHAJINI should be best described i.e. ‘abnormal’! After raking in as much as 64 crores in it’s first week (good enough to be the life time business of the biggest of the hits), the Aamir Khan starrer hasn’t stopped yet. It has gone on and on even in it’s second week as well, so much so that it now finds itself in the elite list of blockbusters in two weeks flat. The film has garnered an astonishing 26 crores plus at the box office in the week gone by, hence making the collections stand over 90 crores.
In the process of doing so, it has not just gone past the biggest money spinner of recent times OM SHANTI OM in a fortnight itself, it is also finding itself in the company of all time money spinners like GADAR-EK PREM KATHA and DILWALE DULHANIYA LE JAYENGE.
While records have been created in it’s second week run, one wonders how the third week would look now considering the fact that majority of those who had to see the film due to the initial hype have already seen it. It’s time now for majority of audience to comprise of repeat audience and while anything that comes from here on is a huge bonus in itself, it can be rest assured that by the end of it’s third week, GHAJINI would have crossed the 100 crore milestone.
The first ever movie to be doing so (without considering the films that have their total adjusted with inflation taken into account), GHAJINI is just days away from history being created. Quite a monumental time for the industry when there is one more film running in the theaters that goes by the name of RAB NE BANA DI JODI. This ‘relatively’ smaller film (in scale, grandeur, setting, budget and publicity) too has crossed 80 crores in it’s four week run and is still counting. With as much as 170 crores coming back to the industry in just a month and a half, it can be said that celebration times are here again.
Now here is looking forward to CHANDNI CHOWK TO CHINA, another biggie that should bring in at least 70 crores more to the industry even if it is reasonably well made. Here is to you Akshay.
By Joginder Tuteja
