B.O. update: 'Chance Pe Dance' has lukewarm start - Page 3

If Shahid Kapoor wants to crack the top 5 status that he's shown to be capable of, he'll have to learn to select his scripts more carefully than Dil Bole Hadippa and Chance Pe Dance. As the latter, his most recent release, has opened quite weakly on Friday across India. The director, Ken Ghosh, had made a successful film with Shahid Kapoor and Amrita Rao in Ishq Vishq in 2003. However the plan went astray this time around as the film opened to about 20-25% response on moderate volumes only on Friday.

Films where actors play themselves, ie actors or other entertainers have tended not to work in recent times. London Dreams last October was a flop as was Shahrukh Khan as 'film superstar' act in Billu. Nonetheless despite CPD, Shahid Kapoor remains one of the few stars who can deliver solo hits in multiple genres; Kaminey, Vivah being case in point.

Meanwhile Shahrukh Khan-Sushmita Sen-Fardeen Khan fare for Mudassar Aziz, Dulha Mil Gaya can be dubbed the first categorical disaster of the year. The film netted under 3 crores for the week, getting beat by an Uday Chopra starrer, Pyaar Impossible, which flopped itself but did about 5 crores.

3 Idiots continued to roll on with another 25-30 crores. The film looks to tally in 180cr+ net in India. 4th weekend has seen its first noticeable drop though screening volumes continue to be high. In week 3, it posted big numbers everywhere but did specially well in the tech belts of India in Bangalore, as well as in Bengal. In some theaters in Bengal even Pyaar Impossible did well surprisingly.

Next week, Salman Khan will try to match 3I with his own mega budget production Veer with Zarine Khan. Following that will be Ram Gopal Varma's expose against the Indian media, Rann, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Ritesh Deshmukh.

Also releasing at the end of January will be the small budget Ishqiyan, set in Eastern UP, and starring Vidya Balan and Arshad Varsi.