‘Satyagraha’ has done decent business at the box office. After a good weekend, it hung on through the weekdays and brought home more moolah. In the process, it managed to cross the 50 crore mark and also managed to surpass the 54 crore first week total of ‘Raajneeti’. Standing at 55 crore, the film has now enjoyed the highest ever opening week collections for a Prakash Jha film.
A lot has been said and written about the budget of the film with some obscenely high numbers being thrown around. However, the production cost here is in the range of 50-55 crore (excluding the print & publicity cost) which means eventually this multi starrer is a plus outing for all involved. Of course no one was expecting ‘Satyagraha’ to be a 100 crore affair, considering the fact that till date only one non-masala film, ‘Barfi!’, has managed this feat.
Yes, expectations had gone further up due to good escalation in footfalls over the weekend, all thanks to some intensive and sustained marketing and promotion. Though there wasn’t a revolution in the offering, the film hung on at select centres, especially multiplexes, which resulted in over 3 crores coming in every day. However, with two major films releasing every week now, it would be interesting to see the kind of distance that it would eventually cover.
Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder
