Box office: Combined earnings of new Friday releases Aankh Micholi, UT69, The Lady Killer under Rs 30 lakh

Arjun Kapoor and Bhumi Pednekar starrer The Lady Killer made less than Rs 40,000 on its first day in theatres. (Screen grab/YouTube/T-Series)

Bollywood is facing pre-Diwali blues, as no commercially notable films released in theatres this week. There are some filler releases arriving during this lean period to make the most of the screen space available but expectedly, collections are just not coming at the box office. Last week saw the 12th Fail, which is managing some sort of collections, though Tejas and Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video didn't have footfalls coming in. Now this week has been even worse with Aankh Micholi, UT69 and The Lady Killer hitting the screens and none managing any sort of numbers.

In fact, this Friday has been the worst of the season when it comes to box office returns, as even the combined collections have not managed to touch the Rs 1 crore mark. In fact leave aside the crore milestone, the combined collections are actually just around the Rs 25 lakh mark, which is really poor if not unexpected.

Let's talk about Aankh Micholi first. It actually has a known director at the helm of affairs, Umesh Shukla. The man delivered OMG - Oh My God and 102 Not Out, both of which were successful at the box office. He then went ahead and made Aankh Micholi, but then the film was delayed for release. Now that the film starring Paresh Rawal, Abhimanyu, Mrunal Thakur, Sharman Joshi, Divya Dutta, Vijay Raaz, Abhishek Banerjee, Grusha Kapoor and Darshan Jariwala has finally arrived in theatres, the collections are just not there. The release was decent with a screen in every major multiplex, but audiences were not in the mood to step in. As a result, the first day numbers stand at Rs 20 lakh*, with no post-release buzz being generated either.

Next, Raj Kundra's experimental UT69, which narrates the ordeal he had to face in jail as an undertrial, could well have been an OTT affair but then a theatrical-first route was chosen for the film and hence it did arrive with a few shows. However, the collections were just not there: less than Rs 10 lakh came in.

What happened with Arjun Kapoor and Bhumi Pednekar starrer The Lady Killer must have been truly heartbreaking for the two actors, as it saw a formality of a release with just a few shows across some small centres. An incomplete film, it was released just so that it could meet its OTT deadline for December-end. As a result, there was no marketing or promotion done for the film nor any release platform provided. No wonder, the collections turned out to be just a few thousand, and not even lakhs!

In the midst of this all, 12th Fail is the only shining spot with the first week collections at Rs 13 crore and then the second week starting well too with Rs 1.75 crore coming on the second Friday. The Vikrant Massey starrer will run on till next Saturday at least and go past the Rs 30 crore mark before Tiger 3 arrives on Sunday, November 12. All eyes are on the Salman Khan starrer to bring back the magic of theatrical experience so that Bollywood is back on its records making spree.

*Estimates. Final numbers awaited

Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources