Almost all of us, film enthusiasts, have been looking forward to the 23rd March weekend for the Pakistani cinemas had 3 films lined up to be released; two of them being our very own. Fortunately, all 3 of them cumulatively have brought in some good footfalls to the cinemas.
23rd March Opening Collections
Sherdil, has risen like a phoenix among all the new releases as it has grossed a total of 1.15 crores on the day of its release. With these collections, it has become the highest opener of 2019 for our local cinema industry beating Gully Boy (which was a mere limited release on Thursday). Sherdil has benefitted highly from the ongoing India-Pakistan hostility as the masses have lapped on to this film. We hope that it continues the momentum, as the weekend collections for Sherdil will most likely be rocking.
Laal Kabootar, the second local release has opened to a normal response i.e. 30 lacs. However, considering the fact that it has no popular name attached to it, the numbers seem fine. The word of mouth for the film has been quite good though so we are hoping for it to sustain for a long time. Moreover, with the number of shows it has, there is a huge chance of big growth over the weekend.
US is the only foreign release of the weekend and it has opened to dismal collections i.e. 5.5 lacs. The film is about to strike the USA box office with solid collections hence we are hoping that it might just pick up in our local markets too.
All the aforementioned movies have a high number of shows. Cherry on top, Humayun Saeed’s Project Ghazi is also set to release next week so if these movies find acceptance among the audience, they can run for a long time. We think this 3-day weekend will prove to be very fateful for both the releases and the real test will start from Monday onwards.
