Though it was a partial holiday of Holi on Monday, it’s always a double-edged sword. While late afternoon and especially evening shows are quite good due to the holiday factor, there is a major loss due to theatres been closed in the morning shows and right till afternoon till about 2-3 pm. As a result, the holiday advantage is more or less gone, but then still to some extent, it turns out to be better than a regular day.
In case of Madgaon Express and Swatantrya Veer Savarkar, there was a bit of an edge that came from the fact that Holi fell on Monday, as a result of which it all played out like an extended weekend and then the major drop that comes on Monday wasn’t there as well. Hence, the collections stayed over the Rs. 2 crores mark for both the films with Madgaon Express bringing in Rs. 2.72 crores and Swatantrya Veer Savarkar collecting Rs. 2.15 crores.
The good part was that neither of the two films were rejected by the audience, something that has happened with so many mid-budget films like these in the last one year or so. They did get good reviews and word of mouth from certain quarters and that allowed them to first grow on Saturday and then consolidate on Sunday and Monday.
As a result, Kunal Kemmu debut directorial has fetched close to Rs. 10 crores in the first four days with Rs. 9.88 crores coming in. It did have a BOGO offer running for most part of its play and even for today the ticket prices have been reduced to just Rs. 150. That should help the film get further traction.
Ditto for Swatantrya Veer Savarkar which too marks the directorial debut of an actor, Randeep Hooda. He has made a polished product and deserves to find an audience outside Maharashtra as well. It has been trying to keep the audience footfalls intact despite no BOGO or other offer in the running and has collected Rs. 8.25 crores so far. Just for today though this offer has been introduced and that should take it past the 10 crores mark.
Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources