Akshay Kumar's new

This week will see two releases, Akshay Kumar’s SPECIAL 26 and the Kay Kay Menon, Prabhudeva and Salman Yusuf Khan starrer, ABCD- ANY BODY CAN DANCE. It is but obvious that the Neeraj Pandey directed SPECIAL 26, starring Akshay, Anupam, Manoj and Kajal, will be the front runner, while ABCD- ANY BODY CAN DANCE will appeal to audiences who prefer dance based musicals.

Last Friday saw about half a dozen releases which included VISHWAROOP, DAVID, DEEWAANA MAIN DEEWANA, MAI… and LISTEN…AMAYA. It was the Kamal Hasaan project that fared the best netting a creditable 7.50 crore during the opening weekend, while Bejoy Nambiar’s DAVID was the next best but netted about a third of the former! The other releases of the week failed to make any significant impact thanks to ‘too many releases in the same week’! The original Tamil version of Kamal’s VISHWAROOPAM is doing very well in the overseas.

Moving on, after a super opening weekend, Abbas-Mustan’s RACE 2 maintained decently during the weekdays as itcollected 7.15 crore from Bombay (collections from other cinemas unreceived), 2.65 crore from Ahemedabad, 70 lakhs from Surat, 65 lakhs from Baroda (collections from 4 cinemas unreceived), 37.65 lakhs from Rajkot, 1.50 crore from Pune, 35 lakhs from Nasik, 25 lakhs from Goa, 11.55 lakhs from Belgaum, 7.15 crore from Delhi city (collections from 6 cinemas unreceived), 1 crore from Noida, 80 lakhs from Ghaziabad, 55.50 lakhs from Kanpur, 90.50 lakhs from Lucknow, 35 lakhs from Agra, 15.75 lakhs from Allahabad, 20 lakhs from Meerut, 6.50 lakhs from Aligarh, 7.65 lakhs from Dehradun, 1.15 crore from Gurgaon, 25 lakhs from Faridabad, 8.50 lakhs from Kurukshetra, 15 lakhs from Panipat, 23 lakhs from Chandigarh, 30.25 lakhs from Jalandhar, 9 lakhs from Amritsar, 25.50 lakhs from Ludhiana, 8.15 lakhs from Bhatinda, 9.25 lakhs from Ambala, 6.75 lakhs from Jammu, 2.15 crore from Calcutta, 5 lakhs from Darjeeling, 7.55 lakhs from Dhanbad, 5.50 lakhs from Ranchi, 20.50 lakhs from Bhubhaneswar, 11 lakhs from Guwahati, 60 lakhs from Nagpur, 27.75 lakhs from Jabalpur, 45 lakhs from Raipur, 1 crore from Indore (collections from 4 cinemas unreceived), 15.50 lakhs from Gwalior (collections from 6 cinemas unreceived), 37.50 lakhs from Bhopal (collections from 4 cinemas unreceived), 1.65 crore from Jaipur, 21 lakhs from Ajmer, 12 lakhs from Bikaner, 40 lakhs from Kota, 20 lakhs from Udaipur, 80 lakhs from Hyderabad, 30 lakhs from Aurangabad (collections from 2 cinemas unreceived), 1.80 crore from Bangalore, 7 lakhs from Vijyawada, 10.65 lakhs from Visakhapatnam, 10.65 lakhs from Madras and 4 lakhs from Coimbatore. Netting around 68 crore during the opening week from India the Anil, Saif, John, Deepika and Jacqueline starrer, RACE 2, is on way to being the first major hit of 2013, more so due to the way the film has progressed in the second week

The film is also quite good in the overseas ($5.5m) and has grossed £706,200 from UK and $ 1,371,800 from UK till the second weekend (1-3 February).

The other release of the same week, AKAASH VANI, was blown away by RACE 2 and barely managed to collect 30 lakhs from Bombay (collections from other cinemas unreceived), 6.50 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 2.50 lakhs from Surat, 3 lakhs from Baroda (collections from 2 cinemas unreceived), 10 lakhs from Pune, 1 lakh from Nasik, 25.50 lakhs from Delhi city , 4 lakhs from Noida, 5 lakhs from Ghaziabad, 1.25 lakhs from Kanpur, 2.50 lakhs from Lucknow, 4 lakhs from Gurgaon, 6.50 lakhs from Calcutta, 3 lakhs from Nagpur, 1 lakh from Jabalpur, 3 lakhs from Raipur, 4.50 lakhs from Indore (collections from 2 cinemas unreceived), 2 lakhs from Bhopal, 1 lakh from Gwalior, 5 lakhs from Jaipur, 3 lakhs from Kota, 1.10 lakhs from Udaipur, l0 lakhs from Hyderabad, 1 lakh from Aurangabad and 5.35 lakhs from Bangalore. Netting around 2 crore during the opening week, AKAASH VANI has flopped at the ticket window.

Concluding with Sudhir Mishra’s INKAAR, after an ordinary first week, the film hit rock bottom in the second, as itcollected 25 lakhs from Bombay (collections from other cinemas unreceived), 3.15 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 1 lakh from Surat, 5.50 lakhs from Pune, 11.55 lakhs from Delhi city, 3 lakhs from Noida, 1.50 lakhs from Ghaziabad, 3.50 lakhs from Gurgaon, 4 lakhs from Calcutta, 3 lakhs from Hyderabad and 6 lakhs from Bangalore. Adding another crore INKAAR has netted 9.75 crore in two weeks from India. The Arjun Rampal and Chitrangda Singh starrer has failed at the box-office.