'Hasee Toh Phasee' wins box office battle

As many as four films released last Friday and "Hasee Toh Phasee" has emerged victorious with Rs.18.5 crore weekend earnings at the domestic box office, while "Heartless" gets second spot, say experts.

"'Hasee Toh Phasee' has collected Rs.18.5 crore net. India business only," trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted Monday.

Karan Johar's Dharma Productions and Anurag Kashyap's Phantom Productions have jointly produced the Vinil Mathew directorial venture and the Rs.25 crore romantic-comedy came out on about 2,000 screens across the country.

One of the highlights of the film is the lead cast - Siddharth Malhotra and Parineeti Chopra.

Meanwhile actor Shekhar Suman's directorial debut "Heartless" starring his son Adhyayan Suman along with Deepti Naval and Om Puri, was released on the same day and it hit about 800 screens.

Nila Madhab Panda-directed "Babloo Happy Hai" and Hasnain Hyderabadwala directed "Ya Rab", which revolves around terrorism, also released on the same day.

"'Heartless' has done the best out of the three. It will be close to Rs.75 lakh over the weekend. The other two are disasters," said Rajesh Thadani of Multimedia Combines.

Gautam Dutta, COO, PVR Cinemas, said that "Heartless" was marketed well and added: "The occupancy was around 70 percent."

Adhyayan, who is yet to taste big success, is happy with the reviews and tweeted: "On the way back opened three radio stations and they were talking about how good the film is and their reviews. Thank you."