Housefull 3 recorded the highest first week collection of 2016 and that too without a holiday. Airlift the next best had a huge national holiday while Fan in 3rd place had a partial holiday. The top first week grossers in 2016 are as follows. 1. Housefull 3 - 80 crore apprx 2. Airlift - 79.29 crore 3. Fan - 71.42 crore 4. Baaghi - 59.68 crore 5. Kapoor & Sons - 44.77 crore The collections are the highest ever in week one for an Akshay Kumar starrer and the highest ever for a comedy film also beating the 73.7 crore nett of Welcome Back and 69 crore nett of Ready.
TE3N had poor opening of around 10-15% while Do Lafzon Ki Kahani was even worse at around 3-5%. This sort of expected for these type of films and its more about collections from late afternoon onward that they get some audience. TE3N should probably do better in the evening especially Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore where the chances are more. A few circuits can be written off already for TE3N has the opening is so low that the pick up has to miraculous to even put average collections in the long run. The opening is lower than a similar film Wazir which was off the same thriller genre. Hollywood release The Conjuring 2 took a better opening than TE3N with 25-30%. The genre factor and limited face value will also curtail business in the long run. Housefull 3 has held well and unless the new releases show some very good growth it will lead despite being in its second week.
With Houseful 3 emerging as the second highest first week grosser of the year till now, the future prospects for the franchise look quite promising. The box office collections for the movie has surpassed the collections of movies like Fan and Baaghi. At the success party of Houseful, Akshay Kumar declared that Houseful 4 will soon follow suit as soon as they lock the appropriate script. “Housefull 4 is happening for sure. It is just a matter of time till we get the right script. Comedy is a very difficult genre and to come up with a funny script is a task. I guess one or one and a half year will be spent researching on the script following which we will make the announcement about Housefull 4. It will take around 3 years from now on to release”, said Akshay. With a fabulous 80 crore plus grossing on the very first week, Houseful 3 has successfully paved the path for the next movie to be in the pipeline. We can’t wait to see the mad gang on screen again!
TE3N fared poorly in week one with collections of 2.75 crore nett apprx. The film was a washout in places like Gujarat and CP Berar though did manage to pick up in Kolkata which is expected due to the regional flavour. The collections are around 50% of Wazir, a similar thriller released earlier this year. Even though it opened double of TE3N it still did not fare well. Housefull 3 had better collections on day eight at most places. TE3N should have growth on Saturday as the film a huge chunk of business has come from metro multiplexes and these theatres rise on Saturday. The problem is the film needs huge growth of Saturday and follow up on Sunday due to such a bad start and that is a tough ask. The other release Do Lafzon Ki Kahaani also could not collect much at around the 1 crore nett mark but is a low budget film. The Conjuring 2 was the best of the lot with business of around 4.25 crore nett which is similar to films like X Men released a few weeks back.
Housefull 3 has emerged a HIT film with business of around 3.50 crore nett on the all important day eight. The business was better than the new Hindi releases and there will be good growth over the weekend especially on Sunday as it could be a repeat of last week as the families come out. The business of the film is around 83.50 croe nett in eight days. There are drops in some circuits but North, Gujarat and Central India continues to do well with some circuits set to to record the highest figures of the year. Gujarat / Saurashtra will be number one by the end of the second week. The lifetime business of the film is hard to judge as a lot depends on the release of Udta Punjab. If Udta Punjab gets delayed it can add 10-15 crore nett business to the film as it will dominate theatres till Sultan. The lifetime range seems to be 115-130 crore nett depending on the Udta Punjab issue..
Four years ago, Ashok Dhyan Chand had sold the movie rights of his father, the legend Dhyan Chand’s life to producers Pooja and Aarti Shetty. Talks about filming the movie however, got stalled midway. As per a report, Shetty sisters have recently taken the project to Karan Johan’s Dharma Productions, and Karan seems to be pretty interested. A source from Dharma said, "Pooja and Aarti sounded Karan Johar out about the Dhyan Chand project. He loved the idea and agreed to co-produce the film. Karan approached Ranbir Kapoor to play Dhyan Chand. Ranbir for reasons best known to him, declined the offer. Karan then took the project to his other favourite Varun Dhawan who is very very keen on playing the hockey legend. He even made his father David Dhawan hear the story. Karan Johar then approached Fox Star Studios who are very keen to get on board." However, there is a major deadlock at Dharma now. Karan, Varun and Fox star studios do not want the film to be directed by a new comer Rohit Jaisingh Vaid. As quoted to bollywoodhungama, a source said, “It was Rohit who bought the rights for the bio-pic on behalf of the Shetty sisters. The right to direct the film cannot be taken away from him unless Rohit voluntarily forfeits it. This, he is in no mood to do." Hope the impasse gets resolved soon!
