PAA Revives ABCL but fails Offshore

CAN PAA give the same lift to ABCL, the production house of Amitabh Bachchan, as Zanjir did to Big B in the seventies?

The box office report of Paa has confirmed that the film is a hit and may become the biggest super hit for the year 2009. The film released on Friday, December 4, had a lukewarm start because of its subject - an extremely rare genetic defect that causes accelerated ageing. However, the movie picked up the next day, following encouraging reviews and word of mouth publicity. The week ends had almost 95 per cent occupancy in theatres of big cities.

Paa was made with a relatively small budget of Rs 15 crore, as a co-production of ABCL and Anil Ambani’s BIG Pictures. According to industry estimates, the film had a collection of over Rs 20 crores in the first three days itself and has raked a profit of about Rs 15 crores so far from the domestic market only. Small cities like Agra, Ambala, Baroda, Pune and Panipat normally have a dull response for movies with serious subjects. However, the collection in such cities for Paa is also reported around fifty per cent. The block buster in these towns has up to 60 per cent occupancy.

Before giving a hit, Amitabh Bachchan in his acting career gave nine flops in a row. After Zanjir his graph kept on moving only upward. Likewise his production house ABCL so far has given string of dull performances on box office with movies like Aks, Major Saab, Mrityudaata and Tere Mere Sapne.

In fact, after getting established in 1996, during the last 13 years, except for hosting the Miss World pageant at Bangalore the company has never been in highlight. It was considered to be an unsuccessful adventure of the Super Star. Now, with Paa rocking the theatres with outstanding performance of its artists and direction of R Balakrishnan, a turning around of ABCL seems to be on the cards.

If audiences do not forget Pran in Zanjir the impression of the look of Auro will not fade out from their memories for years. The character has come up to such a height only because of brilliant makeup done by Christian Kifle, Oscar winner from Hollywood.

Link to Merinews.Com

http://www.merinews.com/article/abcl-revives-with-the-success-of-paa/15790408.shtml

Paa begins dull in overseas market


THE BACHCHAN family production Paa has failed to get a warm reception in overseas market. The initial box office response to Paa in the overseas market is dull. First three day collections in US, UK and Australia was just Rs 1.6 crores from 111 screen.

Beginning with a dull start, the film did pick up on Sunday, December 6, but could not be as great a success as it saw in the Indian domestic market. Per screen average earnings in US, where it was shown on 67 screens, was less than two lakh dollars, approximately Rs 93 Lakhs. The average collection per screen was $2,974.

Average per screen collection in Australia too was below 3,000 dollar. The film was at twentieth place and recorded a collection of $ 24,986. Similarly, in UK it was on the eighteenth position in its opening weekend. From 35 screens, the collection was reported to be around Rs 51 lakh.

http://www.merinews.com/article/paa-begins-dull-in-overseas-market/15790441.shtml