By Abid, Bollywood Trade News Network

This Friday's major release is Yash Raj's Sidhdharth Raj Anand directed Saif-Rani starrer, TA RA RUM PUM. Given the reputation of the banner, the popular music and the success of the team's previous venture with Preity and Saif (SALAAM NAMASTE), a good opening, both in India and especially in the Overseas is a foregone conclusion. The biggest challenge to the well promoted TA RA RUM PUM will only come next week in the form of SPIDER-MAN 3 as both are aiming for the same market chunk - the kids and family segment of the city audience - specially at the multiplexes.

Coming to last Friday's Tusshar-Ayesha starrer, KYA LOVE STORY HAI, the film took a shockingly low start. While the opening in Bombay can be termed as very poor, outside of Bombay it was weak all over. Even Kareena's extremely popular dance number could not do much for the movie. On the whole, KYA LOVE STORY HAI has turned out to be a boring fare with absolutely no chances at the box-office.

The two smaller releases of last Friday, PANGAA NAA LO and AUR PAPPU PASS HO GAYA were never going to achieve anything in the first place and expectedly sank without a trace.

On to the first week performances of BHEJA FRY, BIG BROTHER and PROVOKED. The shoestring budgeted film BHEJA FRY, with an unbelievably low cost of just around 60 lakhs, turned out to be a sweet city success for its makers, as we had predicted. It proves once again that there is now an audience for these small well-made movies.

Talking about the numbers, BHEJA FRY collected 80 lakhs from Bombay, 13 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 10 lakhs from Delhi city, 12.50 lakhs from Gurgaon, 10.50 lakhs from Calcutta, 1.30 lakhs from Jaipur and 11.34 lakhs from Hyderabad. Overall BHEJA FRY collected an impressive 2.25 crores from across India and given its above-mentioned budget, it is already a good success.

The Sunny-Priyanka starrer BIG BROTHER, which had failed to get released, at most multiplexes (specially in Delhi and Bombay), turned in an impressive performance from the single screens. Sunny Deol has once again demonstrated his hold over the single screen audiences of North and Central India. Coming to the actual collections, BIG BROTHER obtained 51 lakhs from Bombay, 20.50 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 10 lakhs from Pune, 16 lakhs from Delhi, 3.27 lakhs from Kanpur, 3 lakhs from Agra, 5 lakhs from Calcutta, 3.50 lakhs from Nagpur, 8.50 lakhs from Jaipur, 15 lakhs from Hyderabad and even 3.50 lakhs from Madras! BIG BROTHER netted nearly 5 crores from about 490 prints, mainly at the single screens. And as we had said last week, it is a safe bet for its distributors of the Hindi belt (including Bihar) and also East Punjab.

Aishwarya Rai’s PROVOKED (dubbed and English) failed to improve upon its ordinary first week’s performance, with the English version too having crashed. The collections show that PROVOKED (English) obtained 14 lakhs from Bombay, 4.40 lakhs from Delhi, 1.25 lakhs from Noida and about 2 lakhs from Gurgaon. Given the two week all-India total of around 1.75 crores for both the versions, the movie is a failure in India. In the UK, PROVOKED has collected $801,918 so far and can be considered an above average but here too the movie has fallen noticeably.

Not to forget Suneel Darshan’s SHAKA LAKA BOOM BOOM, the movie crashed in the second week, obtaining just about 1.25 crores from India. For those interested, SHAKA LAKA BOOM BOOM collected 12 lakhs from Bombay, 2.75 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 8 lakhs from Delhi, 1 lakh apiece from Noida and Ghaziabad, 1.5 lakhs from Kanpur, 1 lakh from Faridabad, 2 lakhs from Jaipur and 1 lakh from Aurangabad. Given the fact that the two week all-India total now stands at nearly 7.75 crores and with the movie under performing in the UK with just $335,785 (as opposed to previous Darshan movies), SHAKA LAKA BOOM BOOM is a losing proposition for Suneel Darshan, as he is also the distributor.

Vipul Shah’s biggest success in India and Overseas, NAMASTEY LONDON, continues its rock steady run. In the fourth week the movie collected 50 lakhs from Bombay, 17 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 36 lakhs from Delhi, 6 lakhs from Noida, 3 lakhs from Agra, 8.65 lakhs from Gurgaon, 10 lakhs from Calcutta, 2.40 lakhs from Jaipur, 4.25 lakhs from Indore, 12 lakhs from Hyderabad and 1.40 lakhs from Madras. The fourth week total is about 3.50 crores, for an all-India total of nearly 34 crores so far. Given the budget and the selling prices, NAMASTEY LONDON is an unquestionable hit in India and is a super hit in the North and parts of Central India. NAMASTEY LONDON is already a super hit in the Overseas with $ 1,207,007 from the US and $1,700,146 from UK.

Meanwhile Mira Nair's Irrfan-Tabu starrer, THE NAMESAKE continues its steady run in India with another 45 lakhs in the fourth week, for an all-India total of about 4.20 crores so far. THE NAMESAKE is now an above average in India and that too with a limited release.

In the Overseas, THE NAMESAKE continues its amazing run in the US with $ 9,796,225 so far. It is decent in the UK with $862,058.