Ranbir Kapoor's Barfi! sweetens box office

The tragicomedy of a love triangle featuring a deaf-mute hero and two women, one of them severely autistic, set in picturesque Darjeeling, enabled audiences to indulge their sweet tooth endlessly over the weekend. "Barfi!" with Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D'Cruz, released on Friday, is indeed as sweet as a barfi.  The movie garnered around Rs 34 crore at the box office in its first three days.  

It also received rave reviews. Komal Nahata, trade analyst and film reviewer tweeted that: "Barfi is like what any barfi should be - so sweet! Savour it and spread the sweetness. UTV can forget d calories & start counting the awards!"

"Barfi!" has had the third biggest opening of the year at multiplexes after "Ek Tha Tiger" and "Agneepath" . Occupancy at multiplex chains like PVR and Inox was reportedly better than for "Agneepath". "The film has a classy evergreen story," says Gautam Dutta, Chief Operating Officer, PVR Limited.

Following the good reviews and a louder buzz on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, the film's collections on Saturday rose 35 per cent over Friday's Rs 8.55 crore. Saturday collections were around Rs 11.50 crore.  On Sunday it collected around Rs 14 crore. This is the biggest weekend collection for a Ranbir Kapoor starrer ever.  "Barfi!" was released on 1,300 screens across 700 theatres. "These collections are phenomenal for such a release," says Harminder Singh of Box Office India. Nowadays, big budget films are released across 2,500 to 3,500 screens.

Meanwhile, "Raaz 3" too continued its good run, albeit with a 75 per cent drop in its collections from the first weekend.  It clocked Rs 8.25 crore in its second weekend thereby taking its 10-day earnings to Rs 60 crore.

The past month starting August 15 has seen good business at the box office. The three big releases of this period- "Ek Tha Tiger", "Raaz 3" and "Barfi!" have had an overall box office collection of around Rs 290 crore.

And it's not over yet. There is a big ticket release this Friday, Madhur Bhandarkar's Kareena Kapoor starrer- "Heroine". It is said to have won the widest release so far for a woman-centric film. It is expected to be released in 2,400 screens overshadowing 1,600 screens for "Dirty Picture" and 1,000 screens for "Kahaani".