Nothing worthwhile came along since Dangal, the film which helped the cinema halls sustain. When it did, two major production houses decided to release their films simultaneously. Kaabil from Rakesh Roshan’s production house and Raees from Excel Entertainment.

Both the releases wanted to cash in on the long weekend as the 26 January, the Republic Day holiday fell on Thursday. To start with, both films releasing on the same day, whatever the occasion, was suicidal. And, for a producer to do that in an era when the multiplex owners call the shots had a role to play when having agreed to give both films an equal exposure, reneged and went along with Raees, which was not really meant for the multiplex audience. The outcome for both the films is tragic.

The idea of releasing the film on Thursday to cash in on the Republic day, made sense. But, what was the logic of both film deciding to hit the screens on Wednesday, the day before the holiday. It was a midweek working day ahead of a long weekend. It turned out to be a bad decision. Both films had a poor opening day collections. While Kaabil suffered because of the competition, Raees was affected as the film’s negative word of mouth spread which reflected on its collections on other days.

*Raees had an average opening of around Rs 20 crore on Wednesday. On Thursday, because of the holiday, it touched its peak only to drop by as much as 50 per cent on Friday and decline thereafter with even Sunday figures being below par. Looking at these figures, the film showed a potential to reach about Rs 90 crore for the opening weekend of five days.

*Kaabil opened to a weak response and though the film enjoyed positive word of mouth from a section of the audience, it did not reflect much on the collections. This praise seemed more from the fallout of disappointment with Raees. It was more like a comparison than the real praise for the film. The film opened to half the figures of Raees and had its best day in Republic Day.

The film collected Rs 57.4 crore for its opening weekend of five days.

*OK Jaanu collected Rs 3.5 crore in its second week taking its two week total to Rs 20.35 crore.

*Dangal added Rs 8.92 crore in its fifth week to take its five week total to Rs 383.87. It added another Rs 1.19 crore for the sixth weekend which takes its 38-day total to Rs 385.06 crore.