Jab Tak Hai Jaan, Son of Sardar rake in Rs 140 cr in wk 1

The Diwali bonanza for the film industry may have ended on a sad note in Mumbai with the death of Bal Thackeray, but not before the two big releases – Jab Tak Hai Jaan (JTHJ) and Son Of Sardar (SOS) — together collected Rs 140 crore net at the box-office.

Both JTHJ and SOS were released on November 13 to exploit the six-day weekend. JTHJ, which was released with 2,500 screens, netted close to Rs 80 crore, while SOS took home Rs 60 crore from 2,000 screens.

“This Diwali has witnessed the longest weekend of six days and with growth in release strategy, business is grown by almost 30-35 per cent. But due to two bigger releases, business was divided,” observed independent film distributor Suniel Wadhwa.

“Both films proved successful at box office as JTHJ dominated in urban cities with class audience. Similarly, SOS managed to dominate in rural areas,” he added.

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TThere were huge expectations from JTHJ to break the first weekend record of Ek Tha Tiger. It could not happen as the business got divided between JTHJ and SOS. Salman Khan’s Ek Tha Tiger, which hit 3,300 screens on August 15 clocked Rs 100 crore in the first weekend.

Loss because of Thackeray’s demise

According to Wadhwa, the potential loss at the box-office, considering that the multiplexes and cinema theatres were shut from Saturday evening to Sunday, is close to Rs 10 crore. “At this point, it’s difficult to quantify the loss, but going by five days collection, both films are bound to suffer losses to producer-distributor-exhibitor in a range of Rs 8-10 crore with a break up of Rs 5-6 crore for JTHJ and Rs 3-4 crore for SOS.”

However, multiplex operators believe that they have suffered a combined revenue loss of over Rs 12-14 crore in Maharashtra. “We are the largest multiplex operators in Maharashtra with 66 screens across the state. We had shut screenings after 5pm on Saturday and on whole of Sunday. Our revenue loss is around Rs 2 crore. The total loss to multiplexes and single screens would be around 12-14 crore,” Gireesh Wankhede, national marketing head of multiplex major Cinemax India, told Business Standard.