I had a hunch Tevar wasn’t going to light up the box office when only one other person joined my friend, Melanie, and me in the theater at Friday’s first showing. The North American box office figures for January 9-11, 2015, proved my hunch correct.
From 125 theaters in the United States (it didn’t open in Canada, apparently), Tevar earned just $125,908, an average per screen of $1,007. To give that per-screen average context, the median PSA in 2014 was $1,977.
That average looks sadder still when compared to PK‘s performance during the same weekend. In its fourth weekend in U.S. and Canadian theaters, PK earned $244,370 from 115 theaters: a per-screen average of $2,125.
Despite being the first new Hindi movie to release in North America in three weeks, people still skipped Tevar in favor of PK. Wow.
My first shout out! It’s curious that people would still be flocking to P.K. over a newer film. Tevar seems to be getting decent reviews in India, but Arjun Kapoor is certainly not the established bankable star that Aamir Khan is.
Tevar has not even gotten some of the basic pr you would expect in the US. No poster picture for Fandango (where you check showtimes and purchase tickets), for example.
Tevar was enjoyable enough, and certainly a nice break from all the heavier Oscar bait currently out in the US theaters. – Melanie