New York ends Bollywood's drought for box-office hit

According to film trade analysts, New York will gross around Rs.30 crore in its opening week (it was released on June 26), beating Hollywood flicks Terminator Salvation and X-Men which are expected to gross around Rs.18-20 crore by next Friday.
Thanks to New York, the analyst said, the average occupancy in multiplexes for the weekend stood at around 80-85 percent, a rare event unless the movie does extremely well.
What is also heartening is the film is doing well not just in big metros but also in small town multiplexes and trade pundits are already speculating the film to do an overall net business of Rs.50 crore.
"This is significant for both Bollywood and the 250-plus multiplexes in India, as they saw the monthly box office collections plummet to around Rs.10-15 crore, especially for April and May when the long-standing row between multiplex operators and Bollywood producers over revenue sharing reached a peak," the analyst said.
The standoff came to an end earlier this month as the two parties reached a consensus over the rationalization of revenue sharing for forthcoming films but when the first Bollywood movie to hit multiplexes Kal Kisne Dekha turned out to be a damp squib, everyone became jittery whether tinsel town has been hit by economic slowdown. Drag comedy Paying Guest too was nothing much to brag about, raking in only Rs.6.5 crore in its first week of run even as Tulip Joshi-starrer Runway turned out to be a washout with just a zero to five percent occupancy during its opening weekend.
However, New York has swept all worries away.
"We were waiting for such a film for the past six months. With New York and Terminator, the gross collections for exhibitors were higher this weekend than in any other previous month this year," said Devang Sampat, senior vice-president, Cinemax India, a leading multiplex chain that is showing New York on 74 screens across the country.
Agrees Roopesh Shah, marketing head for specialized movie-ticket booking website Bookmyshow.com. "The traffic on our website in the past four days has been extremely high, compared to recent months. The tickets for New York were sold out for the weekends and the bookings are on a higher side for the current week, especially for the evening shows," Shah said.
And, if current trend continues, industry sources feel Akshay Kumar-Kareena Kapoor starrer Kambhakt Ishq, which releases nationwide on July 3, would fare even better.
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