The grand Diwali releases of this year, ‘Ram Setu’ and ‘Thank God’ were released on Tuesday, October 25. A lot of expectations were riding on them but sadly, looking at the collections on the first two days, ‘Ram Setu’ as well as ‘Thank God’ seem to have underperformed.
‘Ram Setu’, starring Akshay Kumar, Jacqueline Fernandez and Nushrratt Bharuccha, was the bigger film. The hype was limited but due to Akshay’s presence and festival period, it was able to open at Rs. 15 Crore. Incidentally, we had predicted last week that ‘Ram Setu’ will open in the range of Rs. 15 Crore. The word of mouth was mixed. While the film’s concept and climax were appreciated, the film was slammed for its script and lack of logic. As a result, the film dropped to Rs. 11 Crore on day two, though it was a holiday. The collections for Thursday are expected to be around Rs. 8 crores. In other words, the three-day collections are Rs. 34 crores. The drop on day four, Friday, will indicate if ‘Ram Setu’ will be able to cross the Rs. 100 Crore mark.
‘Thank God’ stars Sidharth Malhotra and Rakul Preet Singh, with Ajay Devgn in a supporting role. Its response was also mixed. The film’s first half seemed slow to many viewers and there were reports that some even walked out in the interval. The second half has got a fairly positive response due to the climax and the hot song “Manike”. Yet, the overall feedback is that the film is not bad but not too good either. Such kind of word of mouth has kept viewers away from theatres.
We had stated in last week’s edition that ‘Thank God’ will open between Rs. 7 and 10 Crore. And as expected, the film opened at Rs. 7.50 Crore on its release day. On the second day, it dropped to Rs. 5.75 Crore. If it has collected Rs. 4 Crore on Thursday, it means it’ll collect Rs. 17.25 Crore in three days. At this rate, it seems nearly impossible to even cross the Rs. 50 Crore mark.
What’s unfortunate is that ‘Thank God’ and ‘Ram Setu’ are collecting such numbers during festival time. It was released at a great time and had the advantage of a six-day weekend. The trade and industry are wondering if the collections are poor in the holiday time, how will the film fare on the weekdays.
