Garam Masala. Top Diwali draw

Diwali and Id have joined hands to put Durga puja far behind in the race for festive filmi footfall.

The five-day movie weekend, which started on Diwali Wednesday, peaked on Id Friday and maintained the surge till Sunday, has turned out to be one of the year?s hottest weeks of movie-watching. So much so that the average footfall at the multiplexes last week has far outnumbered the four-day Puja count at the four-screen properties.

From Forum in Elgin Road to City Centre in Salt Lake to Swabhumi off EM Bypass, it has been raining footfall, with the multiplexes easily notching up the magic 5,000 figure almost every day. The three new releases ? Garam Masala, Shaadi No. 1 and Kyon Ki? ? have been making most of the nine-day first week with up to six shows a day.

?The collections have been phenomenal,? says INOX (City Centre) general manager Subhashish Ganguly. ?During Puja, there were no new movies to choose from but now with the fresh set of releases, everyone?s queuing up to catch the star-studded blockbusters.?

While the three new Bollywood biggies have topped the charts, Rituparno Ghosh?s one-week-old Antarmahal has drawn big numbers, too. Even the morning shows of the not-so-new films like Hanuman, Iqbal and The Legend of Zorro have been running chock-a-block.

?Due to the new releases, we have had to keep the other movies in the morning slot, but here too, the occupancy percentages have been very good,? says Prashant Srivastava, general manager of 89 Cinemas (Swabhumi).

What?s more, people have throughout been booking tickets in bulk for back-to-back shows ? coming out from a Shaadi No. 1 evening show and then catching a Garam Masala night show. ?The show timings are such that one has the option of hopping from one screen to another,? reveals an INOX programming executive.

Of the three new movies vying for top honours, Priyadarshan?s Garam Masala is clearly the winner, with average collections of 95 per cent at the multiplexes. The other comedy, David Dhawan?s Shaadi No. 1, is next, with around 90 per cent, while the emotional Kyon Ki? trails behind, despite the presence of superstars Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor.