John Abraham's Force 2 beats demonetisation lull; makes Rs 20 cr on opening weekend

Films released in past two weeks may not have garnered the revenues anticipated by trade gurus because of demonetisation, but the situation is improving now, experts maintain. And with John Abraham starrer Force 2 raking in a decent opening week collection, things seem to be looking up.

#Force2 saw positive trending over weekend... Weekdays are crucial... Fri 6.05 cr, Sat 6.50 cr, Sun 7.50 cr. Total: ₹ 20.05 cr. India biz.

— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) November 21, 2016

Trade experts say the situation is relatively normal compared to the previous week and that audiences have started to walk into theatres. Single-screen theatres are the ones that had to bear the burnt, as the bulk of the audience prefers to buy tickets with cash and not online. “There has been a huge dip. I feel sorry for the film Rock On 2 which released the week when Prime Minister Narendra Modi made this announcement. But this Friday was relatively better. I can’t say good, but it was decent,” Manoj Desai, Executive Director of Gaiety Galaxy and Maratha Mandir Cinema, told IANS. “Here in Gaeity Galaxy, most of the people book their tickets in cash – which was one of the problems for them. Due to demonetisation, their priorities were different, so they preferred to sort those issues out rather than watch films,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_3027922” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  John Abraham and Sonakshi Sinha star in Force 2. Firstpost Image.[/caption] This Friday Force 2 and Tum Bin 2 had a clash at the box office. But the John Abraham starrer managed to pull in a fair amount of business. “Overall in the first weekend, there was a huge fall in the collection, but now things are getting back to normal as Force 2 had a decent amount of crowd. We hope going ahead, things should get better,” Devang Sampat, Director - Strategic Initiatives, CinÃpolis India, told IANS. Force 2 was released in 1800 screens and according to this Indian Express report, gained momentum at the box office due to word of mouth publicity. Meanwhile, the director of the film Tum Bin 2, Anubhav Sinha, is happy with Modi’s move, he is also hugely disappointed as his film has been affected. “It has affected very badly. As a producer-director, I am feeling sad as you give your blood and sweat to a film and everything is going right when suddenly an outside force, which you have no control over, actually affects the prospects. This is heart breaking,” he told IANS. Gauri Shinde’s Dear Zindagi is all set to hit the screens this Friday and Manoj Desai hopes for a good opening for the film. “I am hoping that things will be far better for Dear Zindagi. The only problem now is that it’s high time we get the new Rs 500 notes back in action so it gets easier to exchange the money. If someone comes with a Rs 2,000 note, it is not easy to give them change,” said Desai. (With inputs from IANS)