With Main Vaapas Aaunga, we are evidencing something that hasn’t happened for as long as I can remember. Yes, there are turnarounds for films when they open slow. However, that starts happening on the first Saturday itself. One film that I can remember following such trajectory was Kangana Ranaut’s Queen, which went on to do almost 35 times the business of its first day. It started with Rs. 1.75 crores on its first day and then went on to have a lifetime of Rs. 61 crores; hence attaining a cult status.
However, the turnaround didn’t take place from the second week onwards. It took place on the second day itself when collections jumped from Rs. 1.75 crore to Rs. 3 crores. Hence, the final lifetime was surprisingly good, but not astonishing, as the word of mouth had anyways spread quite quickly.
When it comes to Main Vaapas Aaunga though, what we are seeing is something that we hear constantly on podcasts around how some of the films in the 70s started growing from second week onwards, or in the recent times with a couple of Marathi and Gujarati movies. In case of this Imtiaz Ali directed film, the first day was a disastrous Rs. 1.28 crores, the second day was a sub-par Rs. 1.85 crores and then the third day was a super ordinary Rs. 2.50 crores. It was only on its 7th day (Thursday) that one could sense something special brewing. The collections shot up to Rs. 2.28 crores, which was close to that of Sunday. That ignited confidence amongst distributors and exhibitors and despite a much higher bigger film Cocktail 2 arriving, there were good screens and shows reserved for it.
Result, second Friday stayed stable at Rs. 2 crores and then on second Saturday the collections have more than doubled to Rs. 4.45 crores. Now that’s also the biggest day of the film’s run so far and early indications are that today they would hit Rs. 6 crores. In comparison, Queen had hit Rs. 4.85 crores on its second Sunday and that was its best score during its run. Main Vaapas Aaunga has set itself well and from here on it would be aiming for weekdays in the range of Rs. 2-3 crores. With its current score reading Rs. 18.91 crores, there is still a long way to go but it’s on the right path at least.
Note: All collections as per various box office sources
