I HATE LUV STORYS RELEASE

This week's Karan Johar production I Hate Luv Storys starring Imran Khan and Sonam Kapoor has been billed to offer some respite for its youth centric entertainment segment offer this weekend, and being given a high release volume in multiplxes. But except for Delhi city and few select multiplexes in Mumbai, the film has not taken a good advance opening. In Calcutta plexes advance and opening is only around 5-10% in morning. Weak. Rest will depend on word of mouth.

Last week's Krantiveer 2 and Mr. Singh Mrs. Mehta did not deliver collection worth roosting about either as each looks to have a brief stay with Krantiveer faring slightly better.

Raavan is about to exit from theaters with a bit over 30 crores. The tamil version Raavanan is faring better down in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, but there too Raavanan will be lucky to collect just about 4-5 crores or so. Had Mani Ratnam made a hit Hindi version instead, the Abhishek Bachchan-Aishwarya Rai starrer may have done a 40-50 crore collection from Bombay alone. Overall the 100 crore venture's a heavy loser for Reliance.

With the end of the first half of 2010, there has been only one real hit across India: Prakash Jha's Rajneeti. Followed by a couple of semi-hits like Housefull and Athithi Tum Kab Jaoge.

In 2010, so called big films are opening up at 30-40 crore opening weeks even though weekly collection capacity at 100% has risen to around Rs. 100 crore/week net. Indicating mass accepted stars and subjects for pan-india targetted Hindi film scripts are what's lacking, not the actual box office potential.

Some upcoming films that will look to target this potential will be Akshay Kumar starrer Khatta Meetha later this month, Yash Raj's Lafangey Parindey next month, and Salman Khan's big release Dabangg after that.