'Jackpot' and 'What The Fish' (WTF) reported a poor weekend at the box office.
While it was hoped that the positive promotions surrounding 'Jackpot' would translate into a fair business (considering it had a wide release), that was not the case. The audience just didn’t seem interested in having a dekko at this Kaizad Gustad-directed affair. As a result, the film’s opening weekend was less than Rs 4 crore*. It was not healthy enough to ensure that the makers could breathe easy.
It was worse for 'What The Fish', which saw a haphazard arrival in theatres. With no real target market set for the film and the publicity centred on Dimple Kapadia, 'WTF' faced the ignominy of not even being reviewed by many publications/websites. It failed to garner even Rs 50 lakhs over the weekend, turning out to be a complete disaster. This is the second downer for director Gurmmeet Singh after 'Warning', which had released a few weeks ago.
As for 'Lucky Kabootar', due to internal problems relating to distribution, the film’s release was put off — literally, at the last minute.
Meanwhile, the film that benefited most due to failure of these two new releases was 'R... Rajkumar'. After enjoying a healthy first week collection of Rs 47 crore, the film added another Rs 10 crore during the second weekend. The film is now the highest grosser ever for Shahid Kapoor. With a total of around Rs 65 crore on the anvil, it will also be Prabhu Deva’s second highest grosser after 'Rowdy Rathore', going past 'Wanted’s total of Rs 61 crore.
* At the time of going to press
