Its been 7 months since we wrote a propitious box office report of a local release. It was mid of November when last time we cheered on the ‘glorious’ opening of Saba Qamar-Yasir Hussain starer ‘Lahore Se Aagey’. Since then not a single film has seen glory on the box office. Not even ‘Balu Mahi’ or ‘Chalay Thay Saath’.
‘Chalay Thay Saath’ is the last local release Pakistanis have gotten to see so far this year (thanks to the foreign film industries, it was not the only film!). The film released on April 15 and ran for almost a month before being taken off the cinemas. The film opened to extremely lackluster response, not unlike former releases of the year, and, unfortunately, could not create any magic on the box office. (Thanks to ‘Fast and Furious 8’ and ‘Bahubali 2’ for ending the dry spell in Pakistani cinemas which started with the ban of Indian films last October!)
As we previously reported, ‘Chalay Thay Saath’ collected 75 lacs in its first week. Running for almost three more weeks, the film could only double this figure in its entire run. According to unofficial, unconfirmed sources, the lifetime collections of the film comes closer to meager 1.5 crore rupees. (Reporting an official, confirmed box office collection has become a herculean task in Pakistan!)
Also read: ‘Chalay Thay Saath’ joins other washouts of 2017!
This definitely sounds disheartening and disappointing. Perhaps, as compared to other releases of the year, ‘Chalay Thay Saath’ did not perform that poorly. It, actually, stands out as better performer than colossal washouts ‘Raasta’, ‘Thora Jee Le’ and ‘Whistle’, which could not even cross the ancient mark of 1 crore.
Here is the tally of approximate collections of 2017 releases so far.
- Balu Mahi – 3.0 crore
- Chalay Thay Saath – 1.5 crore
- Raasta – 0.60 crore
- Thora Jee Le – 0.35 crore
- Whistle – 0.05 crore
We hope next time when we write about box office performance of a local release, it is not as gloomy as this one. We wish all Eid releases the best. 🙂
