Piku has amazed one and all. The film has easily seen the best trending since one can remember and has grown by leaps and bounds with every passing day. For a film to make five times the amount of the opening day over the weekend is something that has never happened before, and Piku managed to do that. Though there have been films that grew 100% and 200% with every passing day over the weekend, it was very small numbers on the opening day, which was the case with the likes of two other fantastic films – Queen and Dum Laga Ke Haisha. However, Piku did that after a 5 crore opening day.
What made the film’s collections count even more was the fact that weekdays were superb too, with collections over (or very near) the 4 crore mark right till Thursday. This is a drop of 20% or less when compared to the opening day, which is again superb by all means. Unprecedented indeed, the film has now crossed the 41 crore mark already, hence getting into the ‘Hit’ zone. The way the film is going, while 60 crore is a given, and hence the ‘Superhit’ tag, it would be interesting to see how far does it go from this point on.
For Deepika Padukone, this is indeed a huge addition to her repertoire as she has managed to balance out the likes of Happy New Year and Chennai Express with Piku and Finding Fanny. As a matter of fact it would be interesting to see her competition with Ranbir Kapoor this week who is coming with Bombay Velvet. Meanwhile, for Amitabh Bachchan this is yet another commercial success after Bhoothnath Returns, hence being the only veteran actor to still find audience as a central protagonist or the main lead. As for Irrfan Khan, he has proved once again that he is the man of all seasons, and can make a film on his own.
Meanwhile, Sunny Leone has suffered her first major commercial disappointment in Kuch Kuch Locha Hai which has not managed to touch even the 4 crore mark. A mega disaster by all means, the film is out of most theatres now. Sunny has five more films lined up for release this year and it would be interesting to see how they play from this point on. Hopefully, Kuch Kuch Locha Hai is only an aberration.
As for Gabbar Is Back, the film stayed well on course during the second week with over 17 crore coming in. The film did have massive challenges at single screens (especially in Maharashtra where Timepass 2 is doing well) and multiplexes (with Piku ruling the show). Still, the footfalls stayed on to be consistent right through the weekdays, hence resulting in good numbers coming in. The film has now crossed the 77 crore mark and while at multiplexes it would now also be challenged by Bombay Velvet, at the single screens it would continue to find audience in the third week as well. This is yet another success for Akshay Kumar this year and while 88-90 crore is set to be touched, it would be interesting to see how far it goes from there.