"Thank you Patna", Shah Rukh Khan tweeted on Friday. It was one of a series of tweets thanking different cities for the response to his latest film, Fan, which hit theatres on Friday. He had good reason to thank the city - the grossed. around Rs 25 lakh on its opening day, the highest if one takes into account the first day collection of some blockbusters released in recent past (see chart).
Running 22 shows in the city theatres, the movie witnessed full houses in almost all of them.
"The response has been beyond my expectation," said Suman Sinha, the owner of Regent Cinemas. "The film appears to have caught the imagination of the residents who enjoyed the movie in a big way."
Sharad Kumar, who manages the Elphinstone and Mona theatres, had the same thing to say.
"Our theatres are running seven shows of Fan and all of them are housefull," he said. "The response has been tremendous."
Cinepolis, a multiplex at P&M mall, is running a dozen shows and sources said more than ninety per cent of the tickets were booked in advance.
King Khan, however, faced some competition from little Mowgli in The Jungle Book, which released a week back. Though the movie is one-week-old, most of its shows are running well. While Cinepolis is running seven shows of the movie, Regent has two.
"Unlike Fan, The Jungle Book had a weak opening, but from Saturday onwards, the movie got a tremendous response, forcing us to continue with shows even after the release of a Shah Rukh Khan movie."," said Cinepolis manager Manoj Pramanik,
Regent theatre owner Suman Sinhasaid there had been some confusion with The Jungle Book among residents because of the censor board certificate declaring that the movie was a little frightening and this appeared to have affected the opening of the movie. "But now, both the shows are running houseful at my theatre," he said.
Despite everything, King Khan can take solace from the fact that his fans were all praises for him after watching the movie.
"Unlike Dilwale, in which Shah Rukh acted in a very predictable manner, Fan showed us to a very different shade of the actor," said Parvin Chandra, a Boring Road resident, who watched the movie with his family. "SRK exhibited all the shades in a wonderful manner. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie."
For Nibha Singh of Raja Bazaar, Shah Rukh's latest offering is a perfect entertainer with a good storyline.
"I watched the movie with my friends as my husband was busy with some work," she said. "All of us enjoyed the movie, particularly the scenes where Shah Rukh was playing the role of a young fan of a superstar."
