Out of the 4 releases of last Friday, only 'Woh Lamhe' managed to survive. Though the film had number of factors in its favor - it came from Vishesh Films banner, starred successful 'jodi' of Shiney and Kangana [Gangster], boasted of hit music by Pritam, had Mohit Suri ['Zeher' and 'Kalyug'] at the helm and generated some timely hype about Mahesh Bhatt and Parveen Babi - it didn't really take the kind of start it deserved. The film did open to encouraging reviews but as has been repeated time and again, its timing wasn't all that perfect. As a result, the film managed to collect 4 crores in the first week, though it deserved a little better. As expected, Mumbai was best with a contribution of 80 lakhs with Delhi following it by some distance [50 lakhs]. The film is safe due to its low price and has good scope in DVD circuit and satellite channels, but theatrically it seems like an average earner at the maximum. Nevertheless, Mohit Suri can boast to be one of the rare directors to have his first three films working at the box office with each of them belonging to a different genre as an icing on the cake.
Coming to 'Krishna' and 'Jai Santoshi Maa', one had expected the latter to work slightly better since its namesake film released in the 70s boasts of being one of the biggest super-hits of all time. Surprisingly in 2006, the film finds itself crashing in a big way with just over 15 lakhs coming in its first week. One of the biggest disasters of the year. 'Krishna' was a little better, though strictly on relative terms, because even it had collections just in the tune of 50 lakhs.
