Oops! 'Ghanchakkar' falls flat on its face

Emraan-Vidya starrer fails to live up to expectations, collects Rs 20 crore in its opening weekend

After Vidya Balan's near-perfect recent record at the box office, her new film with Emraan Hashmi seems to have cut short her dream run. Rajkumar Gupta's Ghanchakkar has failed to live up to the expectations and although the collections of the film are not dismissive, the film has proved to be a major disappointment.

Emraan however has been facing rough weather at the ticket windows for quite some time now as all his recent releases, barring Raaz 3, has flopped. Ghanchakkar has collected Rs 19.98 crore in its opening weekend with Friday being Rs 6.38 crore, Saturday being Rs 6.45 crore and Sunday being Rs 7.15 crore.

In the meanwhile, Aanand L Rai's Raanjhanaa continues to impress with impressive figures in its second weekend, making it a clear hit. The film has collected Rs 9.63 crore taking its grand total of 10 days to Rs 42.04 crore.

Fukrey too has done well in its third weekend with Rs 1.80 crore, making its total Rs 30 crore while Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani has become the second highest grosser of all time after breaking the record of Ek Tha Tiger and is now second only to 3 Idiots.



The film's collections after its fifth weekend (Rs 1.42 crore) stands at Rs 184.79 crore.

Trade expert Amod Mehra says, `Ghanchakkar is very ordinary and except Sunday which was decent, the film has been quite disappointing over all. Raanjhanaa continues to do well and is a qualified hit.

Thankfully, the cost of Ghanchakkar is not very high and if it continues to be the way it is, it just might break even. The audience has rejected the film. It has no repeat value and nothing to talk about.`

According to Girish Wankhede, the official spokesperson of a multiplex chain the word-of-mouth publicity eluded the Emraan Hashmi-Vidya Balan starrer.

He says, `The most recent example of how it has worked for a film is Dhanush-Sonam Kapoor's Raanjhanaa. For Ghanchakkar, the audience did not like the second half of the film and the average occupancy has been around 40 per cent. The second weekend occupancy of Rai's film was around 55 percent, which is very good.`

Trade guru Atul Mohan feels Ghanchakkar lost out due to its weak content. In spite of getting everything from the production house, the director took the audience for granted. There was no attention paid to the content. On the other hand, Raanjhanaa has turned out to be the dark horse and everyone connected to the film will make money,` he says.