Wednesday 10 July 2013

'Lootera' collects 19 crores in the first weekend




Lootera’ is a period Hindi movie which was released on 5th July. The movie is based on the story ‘The Last Leaf’ by O Henry. The movie is directed by Vikramaditya Motwane and is jointly produced by Ekta Kapoor, Shobha Kapoor, Vikas Behl and Anurag Kashyap. The film shows an intense love story between Varun (Ranveer Singh) and Pakhi (Sonakshi Sinha). 'Lootera' makes a decent first weekend business of 19 crores.
The movie went for enormous and huge promotions. Even one week before the actual release, the movie was previewed by Bollywood fraternity. The movie received welcome response from Bollywood people. They appreciated the story line, the antic look of 50’s, the cinematography and the acting of both the actors.
Film maker Karan Johar watched the movie and tweeted, “the superbly crafted and performed 'Lootera'... Sonakshi Sinha is a revelation! All accolades for Vikram...team Phantom and team Balaji!(sic).
Konkana tweeted, “'Udaan' director Vikramaditya comes back with a glorious second film 'Lootera'. Can't wait to see what he will make next. Ranveer exceptional.”
Makers of ‘Lootera’ were upbeat with these responses.
Contrary to this ‘Lootera’ opened up on Friday with a cold response from audiences. Multi screens in metro cities did bag some decent business but single screens in smaller cities had pathetic opening at the ticket counters. On the first day the occupancy at the theaters was only 30-35%. It collected only Rs.5.15 crores on day one of its opening.
But the business for ‘Lootera’ showed some signs of revival and it escalated to 20-25 % from the first day. On Saturday ‘Lootera’ did a business of Rs. 6 crores which further rose to Rs. 7.45 crores on Sunday.
“For a film that’s not hardcore commercial fare, the collections of ‘Lootera’ are more than justified! The numbers on Saturday was a significant jump from Friday and similarly, Sunday saw a significant jump from Saturday – which only proves that the word of mouth has got increasing number of people flocking the cinemas by the day!” says exhibitor-distributor Akshaye Rathi.
Sanjay Dutt’s ‘Policegiri’ was released on the same day and the business for this movie was even worse. ‘Policegiri’ did not go for grand promotions as Sanjay Dutt was facing his punishment term in Pune jail.
Since the business for ‘Lootera’ started picking up gradually, trade analysts believe that the movie will gross Rs.20 crores in the first week unless the collection drips dramatically. Trade analysts are still optimistic for the movie. According to them, this movie was backed by heavy marketing gimmicks.  Also, one of the producers is Balaji, who are known to have a very good network in the industry.

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