BOMBAY TIMES (February 26, 2014)

For years on end, Bollywood was superstitious about releasing movies in the month of January. However, when films like No One Killed Jessica and Agneepath, which released in the first month of 2011 and 2012 respectively, proved successful, it looked like the jinx had been broken. Well, not exactly. A trade source says that January 2014 has, once again, been a jinxed month, with movies losing almost Rs 100 crore.

Mr Joe B Carvalho, Sholay 3D, Dedh Ishqiya, Karle Pyaar Karle, Miss Lovely, Om-Dar-Ba-Dar, Paranthe Wali Gali, Jai Ho and One By Two — all of them fared below expectations.

Though February salvaged the situation to a certain degree by putting out some average earners, the trade is still reeling from the impact of the January duds.

The five films released this week all saw terrible results at box office. The biggest release was KARLE PYAAR KARLE which hit approx 1000 screens across India and the weekend collections were around 75 laks nett with opening day being 20-25 lakhs nett.

The multiplex collections in big cities were a total disaster as good collecting multiplexes had to cancel shows on Saturday and Sunday. The Monday collections were around 15 lakhs nett. So the first week should come to around 1.25 crore nett.

The results were no better for MISS LOVELY which was released on around 300 screens. The film did improve on Saturday but it is irrelevant as collections were so low. If MISS LOVELY collected 2000 at a multiplex on Friday it went to 3000 on Saturday which is actually a 50% jump. But the jump had to be 1000% for it to register with the sort of collections it had initially. PARANTHE WALI GALI was a washout in Delhi and at other places collections were almost zero.

STRINGS OF PASSION released on a couple a screens in Mumbai while OM DAR-B-DAR was a fifteen year old art-house film which finally saw a release in India at some PVR multiplexes. Both films would have been better off had they not released.

Boxofficeindia.Com Trade Network

KARLE PYAAR KARLE, MISS LOVELY, PARANTHE WALI GALI, OM DAR B DAR and STRINGS OF PASSION all had poor openings with the last two hardly having a release. None of the films even managed to collect 50 lakhs on day one.

KARLE PYAAR KARLE had the best release as it hit 1000 screens across India but the collections were disastrous all over. The film is a huge loser as its impossible to go anywhere from such a low opening day.

MISS LOVELY had the next best release of around 300 screens but was also a dull fare. PARANTHE WALI GALIgot a better release in Delhi than the rest of the country but collections were very poor even in Delhi and the rest of the country collected close to nothing.