Akshay Kumar, John Abraham both strike gold

Akshay Kumar and John Abraham’s clash at the box office this Independence Day has had an unexpected outcome — both their films, Gold and Satyameva Jayate, have done well and effectively busted the myth that two big films can’t share a release date.

While Gold has landed Akshay Kumar the biggest opening day of his career, with collections of over Rs 25 crore, Satyameva Jayate has done the same for John Abraham, with collections of around Rs 20 crore.

Gold is doing particularly well at multiplexes, and Satyameva Jayate finds its audiences in B and C centres. Despite the gap in their box office collections, the difference in footfalls boils down to just about five per cent.

“It is quite historical,” says trade analyst Atul Mohan, adding, “This clearly proves that if the content is good, there will be people to watch the film. The figures show that the films have not eaten into each other’s box office figures. Both of them have their own audiences, and the overlap is not much. I think, in the future too, multiple films should release together on holidays. As long as they have good content, they have nothing to worry about.”

Until recently, distributors were worried that a box-office clash would spell disaster for one or both films. But the audience’s verdict has put their fears to rest.

With the weekend coming up, both films can be assured of good lifetime box office collections. And John can count on recording his second success of the year, after Parmanu.

— Sanskriti Media

HT05