Rajesh Kumar Singh, Glamsham Editorial
This is unprecedented and one could see it coming. A Hollywood movie doing better business over the weekend of its release than a Bollywood film was an absurd proposition a few years ago. Not any more. THE AVENGERS, a Disney-UTV release in India, is estimated to have collected about Rs. 15.5 crores at the weekend box office and seems to have bested AVATAR to take No.2 spot in the list of top opening weekend box office performing Hollywood films in India. MI 5 holds the record with 17.5 crores.It has left a multi-starrer Bollywood film like TEZZ gasping for breath behind it with weekend collections that may not even cross 12 crores. This is a big shocker since THE AVENGERS is released only on 800 compared to 2000 screens of TEZZ.
Not only in India, THE AVENGERS has done remarkably well in all 39 overseas territories like UK, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Hong Kong, etc. where it was released this weekend. It has taken the top spot at the box office in all of them, collecting almost Rs. 800 crores (about $178 million), and even setting a new opening weekend collection record in some of them. This excludes two huge territories like China and Russia where the film opens on 4th May with its North American bow. It releases in Japan this August.
(Rajesh Kumar Singh is Editorial Consultant for Festivals and Markets for BollywoodTrade.com. He is a filmmaker, critic and market analyst)
