*Judwaa 2 came after a long gap that was filled by mediocre and non-entertaining films. There were no films in the last few months which could draw out the families from home to watch a film.

Two weeks before Diwali was not the right time to release a film but, to counter that, there was also a long holiday weekend with Dussehra on Saturday and Gandhi Jayanti holiday on Monday.

The film rode on the brand equity of the 1997 original, Judwaa, starring Salman Khan in dual role. Salman even helped promote Judwaa 2 through its promos. The film took a decent opening last Friday with Rs 155 million as Saturday improved by bounds as expected, and so did Sunday as the film put together Rs 579 million for its opening weekend.

Gandhi Jayanti holiday may have have proved to be a major boost to the film’s collections.

*Sanjay Dutt’s comeback film, Bhoomi, has flopped. The film could add little to its opening weekend, and had just made about Rs 95 million for its first week.

*Haseena Parkar proved to be another disaster. One wonders at the choice of such subjects to make films! Films and Rani Laxmi don’t work but someone somewhere thought a film on Haseena Parker will work? The film managed to collect Rs 63 million in its first week.

*Newton proved to be surprise packet as its choice as the Indian entry for the Foreign Language Oscar coincided with its Friday release. Two other films to release on the same Friday, Bhoomi and Haseena Parker, being way below par, Newton got a boost as the people’s first choice. The film, which was poor on day one, picked up to end its first week with collections of Rs 112 million.

*Lucknow Central managed to add just about Rs 75 lakh in its week two to take its two week total to Rs 110 million.

*Simran added Rs 13 million in its week two to take its two week total to Rs 158 million.