It was expected that the coming together on Baby and Dolly Ki Doli would heat up the box office on Friday itself, considering the kind of credentials involved. Though there were no fireworks per se on the opening day as both films didn’t really go on to set the box office on fire, the good part was that the reviews were good. This meant that for the four day long weekend, the Akshay Kumar as well as Sonam Kapoor starrer went on to show jump in collections on a day by day basis.
Let’s talk about Baby first. The film is clearly one of the most acclaimed films of not just the current season but last few years. In fact for Akshay Kumar, this is easily the most appreciated film since one can remember. The film has fetched him rave reviews like never before and while one could foresee that he has delivered one of his best performances ever, this has indeed came true. Moreover, Neeraj Pandey – the captain of the ship – pretty much delivered more than what was expected from the film and has now been hailed for scoring a hat trick of classy entertainers after A Wednesday and Special 26.
These are exactly the factors which contributed in steady rise in collections that were seen for Baby over Saturday, Sunday and then an all important Monday. As word of mouth started catching up, the film started showing escalated footfalls, especially at the multiplexes, as a result of which over 51 crore came in the first four days of release. While this momentum has pretty much established that the film has been appreciated well, Baby needs to stays consistent right through the weekdays as well so as to register some good collections. If at all there is a classy thriller that deserves to cross 100 crore, this one is it.
Meanwhile Dolly Ki Doli took a slow start, which was on the expected lines. However, the collections continued to increase for this Arbaaz Khan production as well. Resultantly, over 15 crore came in till Monday which means Dolly Ki Doli too is giving a good fight at the box office. In fact despite competition like Baby, it is managing to find an audience, especially in the interiors and the single screens. While Sonam Kapoor has found some good reviews all over again for her spunky performance, audiences have liked Rajkummar Rao and Varun Sharma in a major way which is also helping film find some appreciation.
All eyes are now on the weekdays as that would decide the ultimate verdict that both films would enjoy, before the new releases start arriving week after week.
Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder
