Box office collections: 6.5 million tickets sold on National Cinema Day; Brahmastra rocks all over again

Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt in 'Brahmastra'. (Screen grab)

It was a massive day for movie lovers on Friday, National Cinema Day. More than Rs 15 crore came in between four movies - Brahmastra, Chup, Dhokha Round D Corner and Avatar. These numbers came at low ticket rates: Rs 75 at regular screens and around Rs 200 at premium screens. (The same footfalls at regular rates would have seen combined collections of around Rs 45 crore.)

Let’s break this down movie by movie. Brahmastra, which is in its third week, roared again as the footfalls were comparable to its first Friday and the collections were the same as the second Friday at one-third the price, which is nothing short of miraculous. To gather Rs 9 crore* on the third Friday is not a joke and director Ayan Mukerji's film managed to do that due to word of mouth being good and the ticket prices been down. Such a lethal combination is rare and that’s what has benefitted the Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Mouni Roy and Amitabh Bachchan starrer.

That’s what worked in favour of Chup as well, which collected Rs 3.06 crore on its first day. Had the ticket prices been normal, the footfalls would have been limited for the film on Friday due to its niche appeal. However, the R. Balki directed drama managed to excite audiences beyond the target segment as well, and as a result after a decent start in the morning and afternoon shows, there were houseful signs evidenced in the evening and night shows, which is a rare sight these days.

The makers of Dhokha too will be satisfied with the start that the film has received. The promotion and marketing of director Kookie Gulati's dramatic thriller were a tad underwhelming. With a cast like Madhavan, Khushalii Kumar, Darshan Kumaar and Aparshakti Khurana, one would have expected a far greater push. Nonetheless, the word of mouth generated around this film indicate that it could well have an okay run in the theatres.

Now that’s something that Avatar too would be expecting before its sequel Avatar: The Way of Water releases on December 16. To remind audiences of what had transpired back in 2009 when Avatar was first showcased, the makers have re-released the futuristic tale in theatres. In fact they have done well to reserve shows at several premium IMAX, 3D and 4DX screens, which makes for a fine experience for those who want to revisit it for nostalgia and the ones from the current generation of audiences. No wonder even this film managed a good start of Rs 1.75 crore on Friday.

With so much action in theatres, there were 65 lakh (6.5 million) tickets sold, hence resulting in houseful shows at several theatres. It’s always heartening to see audiences thronging theatres in dozens and September 23 would be remembered as the day when all of this (and more) happened to create history.

*Estimates. Final numbers awaited

Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources