Yet again, it's a Hollywood film that's scoring in Indian cinemas this season.
Last year, there were quite a few Hollywood movies that did well, most notably Avatar: The Way of Water, followed by Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder as well as Jurassic World: Dominion, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Batman, Black Adam and Top Gun: Maverick.
This year, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Shazam! Fury of God could not create many ripples but John Wick: Chapter 4 is doing just that.
The Keanu Reeves-starrer action biggie has taken a big lead over the Hindi films in theatres.
It has contributed Rs 27 crore* (Rs 270 million) over the weekend gone by, at a time when so many Hindi films are struggling to score this much even in their lifetime.
Unfortunately for Bollywood, Bheed has proven to be a non-starter with extremely low collections over the weekend.
The Anubhav Sinha-directed film did fetch good reviews but audience footfalls were just not there. The first day collections was below Rs 50 lakh (Rs 5 million).
There was no real jump over the weekend due to which the current score is around Rs 1.50 crore* (Rs 15 million). The film would bring in around Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million) till the release of Ajay Devgn's Bholaa on March 30.
Meanwhile, Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway and Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar are aiming to extend their theatrical business for another month as the only two biggies to arrive are Bholaa and then Salman Khan's Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan on Eid.
Since both the films are now registering numbers on the lower side, they don't need much screen space for themselves and even Rs 1-2 crore (Rs 10-20 million) on a daily basis will keep helping them in their lifetime score.
The Rani Mukerji starrer just managed a weekend of Rs 4.50 crore* (Rs 45 million), and it's okay for this mid-budget film which has recovered its costs through the sale of OTT and satellite rights.
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar is the second highest grosser of 2023, as only Pathaan has scored really well so far.
One expected the Luv Ranjan directorial to go past the Rs 150 (Rs 1.5 billion) crore lifetime total. However, once the nine-day extended first week couldn't bring in Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion), and fell short at Rs 92 crore (Rs 920 million), expectations were reset.
The third weekend saw Rs 9 crore* (Rs 90 million) coming in, and it stands at Rs 129 crore* currently.
*Estimates. Final numbers awaited.
Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources.
