The mood within the industry was anything but upbeat after two big-budget ventures, JAAN-E-MANN and UMRAO JAAN, sank without a trace. But the immediate releases brought ample cheer… VIVAH is a hit; in some circuits, super-hit. APNA SAPNA MONEY MONEY is a success story as well. CASINO ROYALE, the new Bond movie, ranks amongst the most successful foreign films in India. And now the stupendous business of DHOOM 2… Really, it couldn’t get better!

There was unquestionable elation as a result of the staggering opening of DHOOM 2 at the domestic box-office and also beyond the shores of India. The film had a record-shattering start everywhere, deflating the rest of the marketplace [except VIVAH] and effectively rewriting the box-office record book.

Not just big centres, even smaller stations embraced the film with rare enthusiasm. You would find this hard to believe, but the management of certain theatres were compelled to call the police to control the unmanageable crowd - such was the DHOOM 2 effect. Also, the film set first-day records at several stations, including places where ‘House Full’ boards are a rarity. In Mumbai, the first week figures are expected to be gigantic because of the record number of shows [16/18/20/21 shows at multiplexes] every single day, also due to cent per cent occupancy and also thanks to the inflated ticket rates.

It’s the same story everywhere! At Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab, DHOOM 2 has hit the jackpot, registering record collections at almost every theatre. The first week billing is expected to be at an all-time high, with Yash Raj laughing all the way to the bank… yet again. Like this writer pointed out in the review of the film, DHOOM 2 easily ranks amongst Yash Raj’s biggest hits!

The collections did slide downwards on Tuesday, but the drop wasn’t drastic or alarming by any standards. The drop can be attributed to the excessive prints in circulation also. Like, for instance, at a station where a maximum of one print is the requirement, Yash Raj has released the film at two/three theatres. That’s an excellent strategy to accumulate as much as you can in the initial weeks itself. Resultantly, the shares from every station are bound to be huge, enormous and mammoth.

In a nutshell, DHOOM 2 is an upturn in fortunes and if the remaining heavyweights of 2006 [BAABUL, KABUL EXPRESS and BHAGAM BHAG] mirror its opening, the season will be more than salvaged.