HAUNTED – ECHOES OF THE PAST was the leading Hindi film of the week as it collected best of the new releases and the holdover films. The collections are being seen as a surprise mainly as its beaten the far bigger film MAIN VAAPAS AAUNGA which would seem to have a much more awareness especially around the industry as well as in the media, social media and the digital arena. But what is happening at a ground level in the likes of Lucknow, Kanpur and Patna is different as these collections prove.

The 2 crore nett plus collections (would have been more if it had a proper release at the national chains especially PVR Inox) of HAUNTED – ECHOES OF THE PAST is actually not much of a surprise and its more about the genre not taken seriously in the industry. In the 80's when video become rampant, this genre was a parallel industry as it became about the mass audiences due to a chunk of the big city audience shifting to video. Its pretty similar today though for video, you can read streaming.

HAUNTED – ECHOES OF THE PAST is a low budget film and if it can hold up for a week, it will be a success. The film does seem to made through AI technology; so, in terms of look, it does look bad but the audience has come for the horror and if they get that with some sort of story, it will be enough for the film.

MAIN VAAPAS AAUNGA is extremely poor with collections of a little over 1 crore nett. The film has been made on 6-7 times the cost of HAUNTED – ECHOES OF THE PAST and has half the collections of that film which pretty much tells the story. The trailer of the film offers nothing and that reflects in the collections. The film is likely to go the EK DIN way and suffer huge losses as, just like that film, the costs are way higher than the trailer or the cast of this film would suggest.

The other two films GOVERNOR and BHARAT BHHAGYA VIDDHAATA; both collected in the 75 lakh nett range but with trajectory of BHARAT BHHAGYA VIDDHAATA on day one, this one may get more growth. It may even get the best growth of all the new films released though unless its a miracle multifold growth, it will not matter much.

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HAUNTED – ECHOES OF THE PAST collected well again on Saturday as it collected 3 crore nett easily coming out on top of all the new releases. The film almost doubled up its collections at the PVR chain as they increased the shows. This is most up the market chain but on day two the collections of HAUNTED – ECHOES OF THE PAST and MAIN VAAPAS AAUNGA are almost the same.

There is a 10 lakh gap and this is mainly due to less showcasing but when a film like HAUNTED – ECHOES OF THE PAST can collect as much as a film like MAIN VAAPAS AAUNGA at a chain like PVR, it shows how the audience profile has changed today as this would be unthinkable 7-8 years back. The fact that HAUNTED – ECHOES OF THE PAST is better in the Hindi belt is no surprise as that can be expected especially as far as initial goes and it would have been same years back also.

There will be whispers in the industry that the issue here is the audience as they support a lower quality product against a well made film. But cinema in India has never been about which is made better and visually looks better. Its always about the content and emotion and here HAUNTED probably has something to get the audience in and also engage them enough for the film to work at its level. Its always the audience which decides what is a good film and what is a bad film and not the industry or people/media who write about films. These are all opinions and have no value whatsoever, only results hold value.

HAUNTED – ECHOES OF THE PAST will score a decent weekend and just needs to follow through with normal trends over the weekdays and will be a success.

The collections of the films released this week are as follows.

Friday - 2,25,00,000 apprx

Saturday - 3,00,00,000 apprx

Friday - 1,10,00,000 apprx

Saturday - 1,85,00,000 apprx

Friday - 70,00,000 apprx

Saturday - 1,15,00,000 apprx

Friday - 75,00,000 apprx

Saturday - 1,00,00,000 apprx