'Aashiqui 2' beats 'Iron Man' at the Box Office

Films from two popular franchises clashed at the box-office. One an import from Hollywood, Iron Man 3 and the other from Bollywood, Aashiqui 2, the sequel to the 1990 hit film Aashiqui. While both movies were targetted at the youth, reports suggest that the Bhushan Kumar-Mukesh Bhatt co-production venture would have done even better had Iron Man 3 not released the same day.

"We found potential in both the films and hence gave equal number of shows to both Iron Man 3 and Aashiqui 2. While the Aditya Roy Kapur-Shraddha Kapoor starrer received an average, first weekend all India occupancy of 50 per cent, the Robert Downey Jr starrer Iron Man 3 got 70 per cent all India occupancy in its first weekend," says Girish Wankhede, General Manager, Marketing and Public Relations for Cinemax India Ltd.

As per official figures, Iron Man 3 earned an all India collection of Rs 20 crore in its opening weekend. "The response to Iron Man 3 over the weekend is phenomenal. The film has performed very well in all languages Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and English. Dubbed versions contributed more than 40 per cent of the overall collections, which reflects the popularity of this franchise all over. The film's phenomenal performance in 3D is also an endorsement of the fact that the medium is gaining tremendous popularity in the market," Gaurav Verma, Director, India Theatrical Distribution, Studios, Disney UTV.

According to trade analyst Amod Mehra, the producers of Aashiqui 2 made good money at the box-office, especially considering the film's low budget of Rs 12 crore. The film received a steady response on Friday and Saturday, but on Sunday the collections jumped by 25 per cent.

While, trade analyst Vinod Mirani says that the movie collected Rs 17.75 crore in its opening weekend, the official figures presented by T-Series, suggest that the movie collected Rs 20.50 crore during the period.

'Aashiqui 2' Is Superhit, 'Iron Man 3' A Clean Hit

Aashiqui 2 has seen an unbelievable response coming its way. If the weekend collections were flattering enough, what with over 20 crores coming, weekdays have been simply superb as well with collections not just holding on very well but even seeing escalation at number of centres. In fact it was also a never seen phenomenon especially on Wednesday when the collections were more or less equal to that of Friday on account of 1st May holiday. Simply superb!

As a result, the film has netted over 38 crores* in one week flat, something which could well have pleased it's makers (Mohit Suri,Bhushan Kumar, Bhatts) had that been predicted as a lifetime total for the film earlier on. However picture abhi baaki hai since this Aditya Roy Kapur-Shraddha Kapoor starrer has got some good screen space for itself in the second week as well, something that would have seemed impossible a week ago since there is competition in the form of Shootout at Wadala and Bombay Talkies.

A clean superhit, the film's superb run reminds one of OMG Oh My God which had ended at a total of over 80 crores after netting 16 crores in it's opening weekend and 36 crores in it's first week. Though it seems like quite a distance to be covered, rest assured this romantic musical would cross the 50 crore mark at the least.