F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b

We hardly cover box office related news on the blog. But this is really becoming ridiculous, and in epic proportions. If you don’t track the box office numbers closely, let us explain what we mean.

Nikhil Advani’s D-Day released last friday. After its one week run, here are some of the box office number floating around. First one is by Taran Adarsh, who is a well respected trade analyst if you go by the tweets of B-townies. Also, well endorsed by most Bollywood people. Here’s what he tweeted about D-Day’s 1st week collection

So the figure given by Taran is 26 crore net.

Now, check out the figure given by others who also track box office. Amul Mohan edits another well known and respected trade magazine called Super Cinema. Here’s what Amul tweeted

By Amul’s report, the total box office collection of first seven days is 16.5 crores net. As you can see in the tweet, he has given the daily break up too.

So that means a difference of about 10crores (9.5 crores to be exact). A difference of 10crores! Is this a joke? Such a big industry and there’s no accountability of box office figures. Let’s check out the figures given by other sources too.

BoxOfficeIndia has given the same figure of 16.5 crores net.

Girish Johar, who is with Balaji’s distribution wing and tracks box office on daily basis, has also tweeted the figure of 16.5 crores net. Komal Nahata, Editor of trade magazine Film Information, has pitched it far less at Rs 15.75 crores.

UPDATE – Box Office India magazine, which is another reliable source for numbers, they have also finally released the 1st week total of D-Day and it’s Rs 14.6 crores. Ooh la la.

This difference in the figure actually started from its opening weekend. Going by Taran’s tweet, D-Day opened with a collection of Rs 13.69 crs net. For the same three days, Amul tweeted the figure of Rs 9.65 crores net. And strangely, the figure given by DAR Motion Picture (Producer of D-Day) is something else – Rs 12 crores as quoted in this report. If you compare Taran and Amul’s numbers, the opening day collection is still close (Rs 2.94/2.50), but looks like Taran’s figures suddenly got wings from saturday.

Everyone in the industry knows that many trade analysts inflate/deflate box office figures based on various other factors – the kind of reviews they have given to show that they were correct in assessing the film’s potential, relationship with the star/maker, and other ulterior motives. A difference of 1 to 5 crore is almost the accepted norm every week. With no central body that does the job of tracking box office numbers, it’s left to the whims and fancies of trade analysts who play around with them the way they want. Strangely, when they endorse a film and it doesn’t manage to get good numbers, they sometimes don’t even reflect the numbers in their box office report. More generic terms like “not up to to the mark”, “above average” (when you don’t even know what average is), “good not great”, are used to cover up the numbers. Well, all this is for a bigger post some other day.

But CAN SOMEONE FIRST PLEASE EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE OF THIS 10 FUCKING CRORES ?

– Posted by @cilemasnob