Trade Espresso: Smile and sigh

This Friday brought joy to some.. and distress to some. Two young directors, Zoya Akhtar and Ajit Pal, debuted with Luck by Chance and Victory respectively, reports Vajir Singh.

This Friday brought joy to some.. and distress to some. Two young directors, Zoya Akhtar and Ajit Pal, debuted with Luck by Chance and Victory respectively.

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Luck By Chance was well promoted.. and well appreciated by the critics. But it didn’t open well. It got off to a slow start.

However, after the first few shows on Friday, following word-of-mouth praise, collections showed a slight rise.

On par
Saturday saw a definite surge. The evening and night shows had a sizeable crowd. The film trade is expecting it to remain steady over week, in metroes and multiplexes. But it has no takers at single screen theatres and small towns.

Not much was expected from Victory since even the timing of its release was all wrong. The film is set against the backdrop of cricket and the cricket crazy are at home in front of their television watching the on-going India-Sri Lanka ODI series.

The opening collections were as low as 10 and 15 per cent. And given the bad reviews, it could only get worse.

Mohit Suri’s Raaz-The Mystery Begins has finally been accepted by one and all as the first hit of the year.

Sequel strikes
The film managed to do decent business even on weekdays. Considering its tight budget and the modest price at which it was sold, everyone associated with the sequel will profit from it.

Slumdog Millionaire too has done well in its first week, in the metro cities. But the dubbed version didn’t meet with the same kind of success.