Box office: 'Jurassic World: Dominion' and 'Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2' bring cheer to theatre owners

'Jurassic World: Dominion' - the third film in the 'Jurassic World' trilogy - released in theatres on June 10, 2022.

Another Hollywood release has opened really well in India: Jurassic World: Dominion made Rs 8 crore from ticket sales on Day 1, and with the paid preview shows from Thursday added to its kitty, the total stands at Rs 11.75 crore. Now that's a good beginning indeed - the film isn't quite an event film like a Marvel outing but the power of the franchise is such that even with minimal promotion and marketing, it managed to cross Rs10 crore before the start of the weekend.

The last Hollywood film to take a blockbuster opening was Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which saw Rs28.35 crore coming in on the first day itself. The film was in a different league altogether but then Top Gun: Maverick was a disappointment - after its partial release of Thursday which saw Rs 1.94 crore coming in, the Friday full release brought in just Rs 2.46 crore.

Meanwhile, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 is continuing its dream run, establishing Bhool Bhulaiyaa as a franchise to watch. While the first in the series released in 2007 and had lifetime earnings of Rs 50 crore, the sequel has gone many notches higher with Rs164.71 crore collected already. The Kartik Aaryan starrer is the only Hindi film to have done so well, post the release of The Kashmir Files, which had lifetime earnings of Rs253 crore.

Directed by Anees Bazmee, Bhool Bhulaiya 2 is in fact enjoying good occupancy in the limited count of screens where it is playing. The film has withstood competition week after week from Bollywood, south films as well as Hollywood, and is still coming trumps with its uninterrupted run. This can well be seen from the fact that even on its fourth Friday it managed Rs 1.56 crore, which is quite good as that sets the stage for a good jump in numbers over rest of the weekend.

Unfortunately that may not quite happen for Samrat Prithviraj, since the film has seen a further dip in numbers after a low first week of Rs 55.05 crore. After a good jump in numbers on Sunday, it was a freefall from Monday onwards and then Friday was even lower with just Rs 1.60 crore coming in. Akshay Kumar has of course seen far better outcome with his films right till Sooryavanshi and hence the disappointing results of this pre-pandemic produced film could well be an aberration.

Janhit Mein Jaari, which released in theatres at a time when films of its size, scale and genre have already been tagged as 'OTT films', took a start of Rs 43.65 lakh.

One just hopes that things improve from June 24, since JugJugg Jeeyo arrives then and it's one of those big budget multi-starrer family entertainers that have it in them to entice audiences.