Tag Archives: OK Jaanu

Bollywood Box Office: January 27-29, 2017

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There was a decisive winner in the first Bollywood box office battle of 2017. Shah Rukh Khan’s Raees bested the collections of Hrithik Roshan’s Kaabil in North America by a factor of 3:1. During the weekend of January 27-29, 2017, Raees earned $1,742,565 from 289 theaters* ($6,030 average). Including collections from Wednesday and Thursday — both films opened on January 25 — Raees‘s total stands at $2,313,656.

Kaabil‘s total earnings since Wednesday are $781,064, with $631,923 of that coming from 253 theaters ($2,498 average) over the weekend.

The problem for Roshan isn’t that Kaabil failed to match Raees‘s earnings. It’s that this is the second consecutive box office showdown he’s lost. Last year, Roshan’s Mohenjo Daro finished second to Akshay Kumar’s Rustom despite opening in over 100 more theaters than Kumar’s film. In fact, Kaabil‘s opening weekend per-theater average of $2,498 is worse than Mohenjo Daro‘s $3,073 average. Even including earnings from Wednesday and Thursday, Kaabil‘s 5-day per-theater average is just $3,087. Given that Mohenjo Daro was widely derided as a flop, what does that make Kaabil?

Kaabil is going to earn more than $1 million here in the United States and Canada, which is good, but each battle lost diminishes Roshan’s perceived star-power. He’s not on the same level as the Three Khans, and last year’s battle shows him to be less popular here than Kumar at the moment. Even though Kaabil fared better in India relative to Raees, it still finished second. The scheduled Christmas, 2018 box office rematch between Roshan and Khan seems like another battle Roshan is destined to lose.

Other Hindi films still in North American theaters:

  • Dangal: Week 6; $77,817 from 30 theaters; $2,594 average; $12,255,617 total
  • OK Jaanu: Week 3; $131 from one theater; $351,054 total

*In the event that Bollywood Hungama’s North American theater figure actually counts Canadian theaters twice (as has happened in the past), the revised averages are $6,576 at 265 theaters for Raees and $2,772 at 228 theaters for Kaabil.

Sources: Box Office Mojo and Rentrak, via Bollywood Hungama

Bollywood Box Office: January 20-22, 2017

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Dangal turned in another stellar performance at the North American box office over the weekend. From January 20-22, 2017, it earned $193,045 from 62 theaters ($3,114 average), bringing its total earnings to $12,126,860.

Dangal looks nothing like a typical Bollywood movie in its fifth weekend in theaters in North America. Heck, the median opening weekend gross for Bollywood movies released here last year was less than $165,000! In 2016, twenty of the fifty Hindi films released here stuck around theaters for at least five weeks. The median number of theaters for a movie in its fifth weekend was six, the median gross earnings were $4,963, and the median per-theater average was $796. Dangal isn’t just crushing those median numbers, it’s leaps and bounds ahead of the movie with the second best fifth-weekend performance of 2016: Kapoor & Sons, which earned $28,377 from 36 theaters.

On the flip side, OK Jaanu just can’t find an audience here. In its second weekend, it earned $32,773 from 49 theaters ($669 average), bringing its total to $345,725. Raees and Kaabil will knock OK Jaanu out of most of those theaters come Wednesday. Too bad, ’cause it’s an okay film.

Source: Rentrak, via Bollywood Hungama

In Theaters: January 20, 2017

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With two big movies coming out January 25 — Raees and Kaabil — there are no new Hindi films opening in Chicago area theaters on Friday, January 20, 2017. At the time of this writing, the only theaters with confirmed Wednesday showtimes for Raees and Kaabil are MovieMax Cinemas in Niles and the AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, though certainly that will change in the coming days.

Last weekend’s unpopular new release, OK Jaanu, sticks around at MovieMax, South Barrington 30, and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. Tuesday is the last day for OK Jaanu at the South Barrington 30 and Cantera 17, and it shifts to one showing per day — at 11:15 p.m. — at MovieMax starting Wednesday.

Dangal carries over for a fifth week at MovieMax, South Barrington 30, and AMC Loews Woodridge 18 in Woodridge.

Other Indian movies showing in the Chicago area this weekend:

Bollywood Box Office: January 13-15, 2017

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Let’s hope that the lackluster performance of Bollywood’s first 2017 release in North America isn’t an ill omen for the rest of the year. From January 13-15, OK Jaanu earned $211,660 from 136 theaters ($1,556 average), according to Bollywood Hungama. Box Office Mojo reports the number of theaters as 121, which only improves the per-theater average slightly to $1,749. Any opening weekend average of less than $2,000 is bad. Sure, OK Jaanu was up against several new South Indian releases, but Monday’s Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday should’ve boosted overall theater attendance, especially on Sunday.

What compounds the heartache for OK Jaanu is that it earned less than Dangal, which is four weeks old! Over the weekend, Dangal added another $339,057 from 90 theaters ($3,767 average) to its astounding North American total of $11,736,636.

Sources: Box Office Mojo and Rentrak, via Bollywood Hungama

Movie Review: OK Jaanu (2017)

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okjaanu3 Stars (out of 4)

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OK Jaanu (“OK, Darling“) is a straightforward, contemporary romance. No twists, just two attractive people falling in love. The movie works because it knows what it is.

OK Jaanu is a Hindi remake of the 2015 Tamil film OK Kanmani (which I haven’t seen), and from what I understand, it’s pretty faithful to the original. OK Jaanu‘s director, Shaad Ali, got his start as an assistant director under Mani Ratnam, who directed OK Kanmani.

The Hindi version stars Aditya Roy Kapur as video game designer Adi and Shraddha Kapoor as Tara, an architect. At a mutual friend’s wedding, they discover a shared disdain for marriage. They both have plans to leave India in short order: Tara to Paris to continue her architectural studies, and Adi to the United States to “give Zuckerberg a run for his money.”

Allow me a nerdy digression. Mark Zuckerberg is the creator of Facebook, but he’s not a game designer. It would’ve been more accurate for Adi to say he was heading to America to become the next Mark Cerny or Will Wright. (Yes, I know how geeky I sound.)

Adi’s flirty friendship with Tara blooms into a full-blown love affair, though they refuse to utter the word “love”–since their romance must end once they expatriate. The sequence leading up to the consummation of their relationship is very sexy without showing much skin, other than a brief glimpse of Kapur’s shirtless back. The camera pans around the bedroom, letting the sounds of a thunderstorm and A.R. Rahman’s stirring score fill the audience’s imagination.

Adi’s and Tara’s belief that their fling is temporary and free of emotional strings is met with a collective, “We’ll see about that,” by the elder members of their social circle. Their landlord, Gopi (Naseeruddin Shah), recognizes in them the same fondness he and his wife, Charu (Leela Samson), shared in their younger days. As Gopi cares for Charu as her Alzheimer’s progresses, Adi and Tara see a depth of love that they might experience if they were willing to commit to each other.

The main characters’ family situations are a bit confusing, which is unfortunate given that those relationships exist in the story to explain why Adi and Tara are both so biased against marriage. At other times, scene transitions fail to clarify where the characters are geographically.

The lead actors are pretty good, and Kapur’s smile is a killer. However, the characters themselves never really won me over, despite multiple “Having Fun!” montages of the duo and their friends standing in moving convertibles or driving a moped through a cafe. Adi’s and Tara’s first conversation is over cell phones during the middle of a church service, which seems more rude than charming.

Where OK Jaanu redeems itself is in showcasing characters who are open and unapologetic about their sexual desires, all within a narrative that is strongly pro-monogamy. It’s a nice blend of modern and traditional.

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Opening January 13: OK Jaanu

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The first Bollywood movie to release in Chicago area theaters in 2017 is OK Jaanu, a remake of the 2015 Tamil hit OK Kanmani (available on Netflix). The Hindi remake hits theaters on January 13 and stars Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor.

OK Jaanu opens on Friday at the AMC River East 21 in Chicago, Muvico Rosemont 18 in Rosemont, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, Marcus Addison Cinema in Addison, Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville, and AMC Loews Woodridge 18 in Woodridge. It has a listed runtime of 2 hrs. 15 min.

Dangal carries over for a fourth week at the South Barrington 30, Cantera 17, Woodridge 18, MovieMax Cinemas in Niles, and AMC Showplace Naperville 16 in Naperville.

Other Indian movies showing in the Chicago area this weekend include: