Happy Bhag Jayegi was never expected to take a rollicking start at the Box Office. After all, the marketing and promotion was controlled and while the songs hadn't quite become chartbusters, those coupled with the promo, had managed some attention at the least for the Mudassar Aziz directed film. In fact, one always wondered why the comeback of Diana Penty wasn't splashed all over, considering the fact that she had been so impressive in her debut flick Cocktail. Guess the makers (Eros, Aanand L. Rai) wanted the film to talk for itself and that can be seen in the fair opening that it has received.
With Rs. 2.32 crore coming in, the film has done much better than countless nameless and faceless rom-coms that hit the screens week after week. In that aspect, these are still reasonably respectable collections at the least as the frothy rom-com has a chance to see some sort of escalation over the weekend.
That needs to happen really fast though and one expects at least Rs. 8 crore more between today and tomorrow, so that the weekend collections top the Rs.10 crore mark. Meanwhile, the film needs to battle Rustom which is doing great guns and is seeing double the business already. Also, at least some footfalls are getting diverted to Mohenjo Daro as well, though this week is still one of the best chances for Happy Bhag Jayegi as on any other week it would have faced a challenge from another new and bigger release.
For Diana Penty, Abhay Deol, Jimmy Sheirgill and Ali Fazal, it would indeed be 'fingers crossed' moments for days to come, though favourable reviews and word of mouth mean they can at least expect to come out smiling.
