‘Uunchai’ Crosses $2 Million In A Week

Filmmaker Sooraj Barjatya returned to direction after a long with his latest Hindi film, Uunchai, and it has proved to be worth the wait for his fans. Starring Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher, Boman Irani, Sarika and Neena Gupta, Uunchai has crossed $2 million collections in a week. It had a limited released with little less than 500 screens across India.

After making an opening collection of $2,44,681, Uunchai saw steep rise and the collections doubled over the weekend. The collections for the weekdays dipped but have remained steady resulting in a respectable one week figure.

Barjatya’s film traces the journey of three friends, way past retirement age, as they cross their own limitations to fulfil the last wish of their friend who died wishing they go for a tiresome mountain trek to the Everest Base Camp. With films such as Hum Aapke Hain Koun and Hum Sath Saath Hain, Barjatya is known for sticking to traditions and age-old beliefs but the best part about his new film is that it tries to strike a balance between the new and the old.

Personified by Bachchan’s character, the film aims at finding a middle ground where both the old and new generations accept each other and change for the sake of happiness and freedom.

Movie chain PVR has claimed that their theatres saw nearly 70% of family audiences comprising of senior citizens for Uunchai. PVR Limited CEO Gautam Dutta says in a press statement, “Through this movie, we can clearly see the revival of movies in cinemas that appeal to family audiences. Uunchai is becoming the 60+ Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, the 2011 movie where three childhood friends follow their dream.”

Samantha Ruth Prabhu has enchanted the masses across India as her latest film, Yashoda, made impressive numbers at the box office. The Telugu film has been directed by Haresh Narayan and Hari Shankar and also stars Unni Mukundan and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar. The film has collected $3 million worldwide since the release on November 11.

With a weekend total of $380,000 in the US markets, the film also ranked tenth on Comscore’sSCOR
list of top 10 grossers in the USA over the weekend ending November 13. Sampath Raj, Rao Ramesh and Murali Sharma also play important parts in the film.

Yashoda is a crime thriller and offers the perfect platform for Samantha to showcase her acting chops. From the vulnerable and emotional young woman becoming a surrgoate mom for the sake of money, to a well-trained cop, she gets to do it all in the same film. While the film is full of typical ‘masala’ elements of movies, Samantha’s performance and the thriller’s pace ensure the audience gets to enjoy it nonetheless.

Meanwhile, Mani Ratnam’s Tamil film Ponniyin Selvan I, that released in five languages (Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam and Kannada), also continues to charm the audiences. As per the producers, the film has crossed the $61.1 million collections worldwide in 50 days of the film’s release on September 30.