Box Office: Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar Does Well Over The Extended Weekend, All Eyes On Stability From Here

Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar Update: It was a good five-day long extended weekend for Luv Ranjan's Holi release as Rs 71.16 crores* came in. Released on the partial holiday of Holi on Wednesday, the film had collected Rs 15.73 crores. It was akin to wielding a twin-edged sword because though on one side there was this holiday factor that resulted in the evening and night shows being good, on the other side there were no morning and afternoon shows, as is the trend with theatres which begin to operate only later afternoon. As a result, there wasn't really a major advantage.

As a matter of fact, it proved to be disadvantageous to an extent since in some parts of the country Holi fell on Tuesday due to which it was a working day there on Wednesday. Hence, there was no holiday advantage at all there. Moreover, since the release was bang in the middle of the week, the collections were impacted on Thursday [10.34 crores], so there was stability seen on Friday [10.52]. Eventually, it all boiled down to Saturday [17.50 crores*] and Sunday [18 crores*] to emerge as quite good and thankfully that did happen indeed.

That said, there was certainly a mild scare factor when Thursday didn't get into that Rs 12-13 crores range which ideally should have been the case. This is where murmurs begin to take place in the industry and there is this unnecessary negativity that steps in. Those not quite aware about the functioning of the trade begin to pull down a movie just in order to indulge some loose talks, and that's totally unwarranted, especially when a film as a whole is quite good. This happened in case of this Luv Ranjan directed film too, though thankfully it has subsided now.

Hence, I personally believe that such kind of long weekends are more of a burden than advantageous since that the makers need to do in order to keep building up the perception. Yes, one can argue that Pathaan collected huge on its mid-week release but then first and foremost it had the advantage of Republic Day national holiday right on the second day and very importantly it was an event film which was awaited for a couple of years. For a non-event film like Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar, regardless of it carrying big stars, a regular release always helps.

Fortunately, though it has managed to come out unscathed and is in fact finding itself in a good position from where it can consolidate the collections further. There is a good cushion that it has gained with its five day numbers being good enough and what's required now is for the numbers to stay good right through the weekdays. Ideally, at least 30 crores more should come in so that the extended nine day week results in the film entering the 100 Crore Club. From there it would be all about collecting as much as it can before Bholaa arrives on 30th January.

The Ranbir Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor starrer is running sans any competition whatsoever this week but then audiences would have choices available from coming Friday onwards. Not that any of these films would see a massive released which would entail a blockbuster opening. However if either of the three films, be it Mrs. Chatterjee v/s Norway, Zwigato or Kabzaa ends up flying high due to fantastic reviews and audience word of mouth then Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar would need to battle it out there as well for the rest of its run.

*Estimates. Final numbers awaited

Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources