Box Office: Yuvraj fails, Dostana slows

After an impressive opening week run, Dostana saw consistent drops at the start of its 2nd week Friday. Collections have come down over 60% in places. The film however has performed well geographically uniformly across the centers of India, though multiplexes have fared better than single screens. This film has broken 7 day collection records at a number of stations.

It remains to be seen however if Dostana 2nd week will still crash and burn out the way Karan Johar's previous release: Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna did in August 2006. That film took in a big opening and then essentially crashed and bottomed out quickly. At this point it appears Dostana will be stabler than KANK but not as steady as Dhoom 1, the previous Abhishek Bachchan-John Abraham film which came out of nowhere to become blockbuster and set up a franchise. Meanwhile, John Abraham is next slated to sign an action film after the apparent success of Dostana.

On the other hand, the highly billed Salman Khan-Katrina Kaif-Anil Kapoor-Zayed Khan starrer Yuvraaj has shockingly failed to take a respectable opening in India. In fact at 30-40%, the opening is well below par for a film of this budget and scale and unless things pick up, Yuvraj is headed to suffer at the box office.

A Tamil film called Varanam Aaiyram has released in Mumbai after faring quite well in Tamil Nadu.