Cinegoers outside Regent in Patna on Friday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

It takes a lot to make people smile and a dirty dozen characters have taken the saying one step up with a laughter riot — HOUSeFULL 2-The Dirty Dozen. The film released on Friday, with an overall collection of around Rs 8 lakh on the opening day.

The Sajid Khan directed 2-hour-40-minute action-comedy has surpassed the day-one collections of Bodyguard (Rs 7,87,500), Ra.One (Rs 3,69,340) and Don 2 (Rs 6,87,000) in the capital. However, the Akshay Kumar-starrer failed to reach anywhere near Karan Johar’s Agneepath, which made a business of Rs 11,87,500 on day one. The response of the film was so overwhelming that cinelovers did not mind paying Rs 500 for a ticket sold outside Regent cinema. “We got a tremendous response from the audience and the film is in great demand. People are ready to pay any amount to watch the film,” said a person selling tickets at a premium to those who could not get it from the counters. However, Regent owner Suman Kumar Sinha said: “We have slashed down the prices of the tickets so that everyone could watch the film. I never expected that such elements (black marketers) would benefit from our decision. But I am happy that all the shows have been fully booked till Sunday. After a long time, such an entertaining film has hit the cinemas.”

Pankaj Kumar, who was at the Regent for the show, said: “The films which released in the past few months were mostly action-thrillers. HOUSeFULL 2 is completely different. Akshay, John Abraham, Riteish Deshmukh and Shreyas Talpade took us on a roller coaster ride. Akshay has mastered the art of tickling the audience with his funny facial expressions.”

Abhishek Ranjan, the manager of Cinepolis, said: “We have received a very good response and all 12 shows are running houseful. More than 80 per cent tickets have been booked for the weekend shows. It is a complete masala movie.”