(From top): Taare Zameen Par, Return of Hanuman, Kailase Kelenkari and Welcome

Eight days into the New Year, not a single Bollywood or Tollywood film has released. But no one is complaining. For, the box-office start to 2008 has been the best in years. All thanks to a four-in-one fun run — a thought-provoking tearjerker, a comic caper, some animated antics and some super sleuthing.

Diversity — Taare Zameen Par, Welcome, Return of Hanuman and Kailase Kelenkari — is the name of the box-office game this January, traditionally dubbed the worst month of the year.

“Thanks to superior diversified content, the traditionally weak period is going super strong,” says Vikas Syal, the general manager of INOX (Forum). “The word-of-mouth publicity for all four films has helped carry over the festive collections from the last week of December into January. Almost completing their third weeks, Taare Zameen Par, Welcome and Kailase Kelenkari are going strong while Return of Hanuman has had a good second week.”

“Four films working together is indeed big in any part of the world because as we have seen with big Diwali releases in Bollywood, only one or two of the multiple releases work,” says trade analyst Indu Mirani.

A heady mix of stars and substance, fun and funda has clicked for the awesome foursome. Shining the brightest is Taare Zameen Par with Aamir Khan the director and Darsheen Safary the actor tugging at heartstrings and forcing us to pause and ponder.

Anurag Kashyap’s Return of Hanuman is working with both children and their parents, while Welcome is the triumph of yet another Akshay Kumar comedy, with Katrina Kaif for company.

For once, a Tolly film is running the Bolly ones close. Feluda, after all, is connecting with age-group nine to 90 as Sandip Ray’s Kailase Kelenkari plays to full houses since December 21.

“On December 25 and January 1, footfalls were over 90 per cent in the plexes, at Nandan, Priya and Star Theatre. The budget is over a crore and we have recovered over Rs 50 lakh in the second week itself; which is phenomenal. We expect it to run for another three weeks with at least 75 per cent footfall,” says Vinayak Sarkar of T Sarkar Productions, joint producers of the film with Innovative Multimedia.