Ek Villain (3 Days) First Weekend Collection At Box Office

Ekta Kapoor's latest production Ek Villain has made fantastic collection at the Indian Box Office in the first weekend. Despite releasing in lesser number of screens, the Sidharth Malhotra, Riteish Deshmukh and Shraddha Kapoor starrer has performed far better than a listers' movies like Salman Khan's Jai Ho, Akshay Kumar's Holiday and Saif Ali Khan's Humshakals. It has crossed Rs 50 crore mark in the domestic market in three days.

Before its release, Ek Villain had garnered lot of public attention through its promos and its makers' massive publicity strategies were the big plus points of the movie. Released in 2539 screens in the domestic market on June 27, the film opened to a superb response with its average occupancy ranging between 65% and 75% in both single screens and multiplexes on Friday. It had better amount of footfalls in urban centers with many centres running to packed houses on its opening day.

Having garnered lot of positive response from the both film goers and critics, the Mohit Suri-directed movie Ek Villain collected Rs 16.72 crores nett at the Indian Box Office on the first day. The film smashed the records of biggies like Humshakals (Rs 12.5 cr from 3500 screens) and Holiday (Rs 12.08 cr from 3500 screens) and became the second biggest opener of 2014 after Jai Ho (Rs 17.75 cr from 4400 screens).

The strong positive word of mouth was expected to take the business Ek Villain upwards in the domestic market on Saturday. Instead of going up, the movie dropped with its collection reaching Rs 16.54 crores nett at the Indian Box Office on second day. However, the film witnessed improvements on Sunday. It has collected Rs 17.44 crores nett at the Indian Box Office on its third day, taking its first weekend total to Rs 50.70 crores nett.

Bollywood trade analyst Taran Adarsh writes, "The weekend business of Ek Villain has been incredible, which has come as a shocker for many within the industry. Keeping in mind its star cast, the budget and the screen count [2539 screens in the domestic market], the weekend numbers of Ek Villain are at par with any big-budget film starring an A-lister that gets an extensive release [3500+ screens in the domestic market]."