Box Office Report post 26/11

The Mumbai terror attacks had casualties in Bollywood as well. To begin with, out of the three films that were to release on Friday, November 28, UTV's Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, Onir's Sorry Bhai and Rohan Sippy's The President Is Coming, one got indefinitely postponed (TPIC) while the remaining two OLLO and Sorry Bhai opened to empty halls.

The opening weekend collections of these films somehow reminded us of the 26th July 2005 scenario when the mega floods washed out Mumbai, and subsequently the three films – Yahaan, Sehar and 7 ½ Phere which released that weekend.

The Collections:

Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! was Dibakar Bannerjee's next after his well-loved debut hit, Khosla Ka Ghosla (2006). While its Mumbai release was postponed by a day because of government's directive to keep theatres closed, it didn't exactly set the box office on fire in the remaining centers. The film's Friday collections in Delhi circuit were just 20 per cent and there was just about a 5 per cent rise in them for Saturday and Sunday. In Mumbai when it opened on Saturday it managed just about 15-20% opening weekend collections.

Fun Cinemas reported 15-20% collections, Cinemax 10-15 per cent, Adlabs – 20 per cent and PVR – 20-25 per cent opening weekend collections for the Abhay Deol starrer.

"What was surprising that despite being a UTV production, the publicity of the film was very poor. It starred Abhay Deol who is not really a bankable name at the ticket window yet and Dibakar Bannerjee too is just one film old. The film needed an extra marketing push. The film has definitely got some merits but there is fear that it may go largely unnoticed in the current scenario. But it has strong chances to do very well at the home video circuit and also fetch a good price for it's satellite rights," says Atul Mohan of Complete Cinema.

While a senior trade analyst cattily adds, "The two times 'Lucky' used in the film's title could not save its 'Unlucky' fate at the box office. UTV has a strong backup and it could have very well managed to postpone the film by a week or two instead of hurrying the release and wasting such a good film. It was sheer professional hara-kiri."

NEXT: Sorry Bhai cuts a sorry figure too