With 10 releases, box office hardly makes money this Friday

The entertainment industry saw as many as 10 movies releasing this Friday -- eight Hindi and two Hollywood films. But even this could not keep the box office from going nearly empty-handed this Friday.

While Gurmeet Ram Rahim's verdict brought a huge part of the North to a standstill, Maharashtra got busy with Ganesh Chathurthi revelries. This meant that not many in either the north in Mumbai went to the theatres this Friday.

Put together, the overall box office collections on the ten-movie-release weekend came up to only Rs 5 crore in ticket sales.

Action comedy A Gentleman, written and directed by Raj and D.K, couldn't pull the crowd to the theaters. Siddharth Malhotra and Jacqueline Fernandes' first movie together collected only about Rs 3 crore on its opening day at the box office. (To make it worse, the lead actor put out rather ill-conceived tweet that earned him a lot of flak.)

To all the people of Haryana , please stay safe. Hope you can see our film soon #Agentleman #PeaceAndLove

— Sidharth Malhotra (@S1dharthM) August 25, 2017

Unfortunately enough, Nawazuddin Siddiqui-starrer Babumoshai Bandookbaaz, too, couldn't pack a punch at the box office this weekend. According to Boxofficeindia, the film made only about Rs 1.2 crore on Friday.

"While Toilet and Bareilly ki Barfi had just started bringing in fresh air to the box office making some money, after this weekend theaters again slipped into a lull. Babaji's verdict prevented the north from checking into theaters and even Bandookbaaz, which is based in the north, didn't work there. The whole of Mumbai was celebrating Ganesh Chathurthi and didn't go to watch any movies," said film trade analyst Atul Mohan.

Down south, Siva's Tamil release Vivegam stole the thunder from all the other major releases. Starring Ajith Kumar, Vivek Oberoi, Kajal Agarwal and Akshara Hassan, this Tamil thriller made Rs 32 crore at the box office on its opening day.

"The South Indian market has a very loyal audience. So, they stuck to their big release abandoning all the other national releases. More so, there wasn't anything bigger than their release, so Vivegam stole the show," Mohan added.

According to analysts, the week, too, had no chances of recovery because the reviews that appeared for each of the releases weren't too upbeat about their success at the box office.

Some of the other releases of the week that included Yash Raj Film's Quidi Band that launched Ranbir Kapoor's cousin Aadar Jain also made under only a lakh and half at the box office. The others like Sniff, Rally, Mr Kabaadi, Muskurahatein, Toh Fir Aona managed little to no collection this Friday at the box office.