Into 2nd week, Ra.One faces near-empty halls

Theatre occupancy for Ra.One dipped to 15 to 20 per cent in weekdays after 90 to 100 per cent occupancy over its release weekend. The superhero science fiction movie had attracted considerable pre-release publicity with mega star Shah Rukh Khan going on a marketing overdrive with a ten-month 360-degree campaign — the first of its kind for a Bollywood film.

That tempo, though, seems to be now losing steam. “The film started off very well due to the curiosity factor, with virtually packed houses, but couldn’t even sustain over the weekend,” says a senior executive of a leading multiplex chain that has exhibition halls across the country. “The occupancy started dropping since Sunday.” The weekday occupancies for Ra.One are much lower than it was for Bodyguard, a Salman Khan-starrer released two months ago, he added.

Another official and independent distributor confirmed that there was a huge drop. “The occupancy on Sunday was about 40 per cent, and Monday was about 20 per cent,” he said.

Eros International, which holds the worldwide distribution rights, said the 160-minute movie has grossed Rs 170 crore (net collections Rs 87 crore at domestic box-office) globally in the first five days in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. The overseas collection stood at Rs 33 crore.

The movie, produced by SRK’s wife Gauri Khan, was released on 4,600 screens worldwide in both 2D and 3D format. Bodyguard, which was released in 2700 screens on August 31, has grossed Rs 88 crore.

According to Boxofficeindia.com, Ra.One’s Hindi version netted Rs 80.9 crore from Indian box-office in its opening weekend. It is a little less than Bodygaurd, which collected Rs 86 crore. The dubbed versions collected around Rs 7 crore, which make it a total of Rs 87.9 crore.

A closer look at the earnings break-up ever since its opening day shows that Hindi version Ra.One earned Rs 14.85 crore on day one, while Bodyguard collected around Rs 21 crore (Wednesday). The collections that followed stood like this: Rs 22.90 crore vs Rs 17.5 crore (Thursday), Rs 15.30 crore vs Rs 13.25 crore (Friday) Rs 14.55 crore vs Rs 14.85 crore (Saturday), Rs 13.30 crore vs 19.5 crore (Sunday) and Rs 5 crore vs Rs 7 crore (Monday).

The content of the film, directed by Anubhav Sinha and starring Kareena Kapoor opposite SRK, has met with diverse response. Some did love the world-class special effects, while others simply disregarded it as a Hollywood imitation.

The marketing hype, though, paid off well. The producers, after all, recovered a little over Rs 100 crore even before the film released — by selling all the necessary rights such as cable and satellite rights (Rs 5 crore to Star India), music rights (Rs 15 crore to Tseries) and the marketing rights (Rs 52 crore).

Eros, on its part, expects that the international exposure of Ra.One will continue to grow in the coming months as it continues to take the film to many more countries. The film is scheduled for theatrical release in the first quarter of 2012 across several territories. They include South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Russia, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Palestine, Brazil, Spain, Italy and Greece.