Comedy is certainly the flavour of the season in Bollywood with every other comic caper making a killing at the turnstiles and dime-a-dozen dream merchants scrambling over one another to board the bandwagon. Among the recent to hit the box office is “Dhamaal”.

No sooner was David Dhawan’s pop-up comedy flick, “Partner”, declared a hit, another veteran of the genre, Indra Kumar, seems poised to hit a homerun with his latest offering “Dhamaal”, which released Friday.

Initial reports of the film starring Sanjay Dutt, Riteish Deshmukh, Arshad Warsi, Javed Jaffrey and Ashish Chaudhary are pretty encouraging.

Unlike the recently released crass comedy “Budha Mar Gaya” and many offerings that vend vulgarity in the name of humour, “Dhamaal” is being appreciated by the gentry as a relatively clean, plot-driven comedy.

In a year that has witnessed crumbling of a number of box-office formulae including the embarrassing box-office drubbing awarded to mega-budget Yash Raj Films-productions “Ta Ra Rum Pum” and “Jhoom Barabar Jhoom”, the industry has been iffy about what will work.

The films that have worked at the box-office this year have been dramatically unlike the usual Bollywood potboilers.

The first blockbuster was Mani Ratnam’s “Guru” loosely based on the life of Indian industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani. Then came the sleeper hit “Bheja Fry” that turned Hindi film industry’s economics on its head. And “Chak De! India” that is ruling the marquees now is like nothing ever seen before in Bollywood boulevard.

For the box-office, laughter has indeed proved to be the best medicine and tickling the funny bone has become serious money-spinning formula.

“Partner” reportedly made Rs.300 million in its opening week alone. For Dhawan, the king of comedy, who returned to wielding the megaphone after a two-year break adapting Hollywood’s “Hitch” with the perfect twosome of Salman Khan and Govinda, had paid off big time.

The multiplexes and movie theatres have been chock-full of recent comedy releases - “Bhagam Bhag”, “Golmaal”, “Hey Babyy” and “Bheja Fry”.

The most remarkable success story is that of “Bheja Fry” - made on a modest budget of just Rs.5.5 million. The film with Vinay Pathak and Rajat Kapoor in the lead grossed more that five times its cost and has others hoping to repeat its success.

“We Indians have a herd mentality. If, for any reason, one particular comedy movie works, everyone else will be eager to cash in. The next thing you know is every director in Bollywood is making a funny movie! Thus, the success of a particular genre plays a big role. Besides, comedy is a great stress-buster,” says “Bheja Fry” producer Sunil Doshi.

Following closely on the heels of “Partner” was debutant director Sajid Khan’s “Heyy Babyy” with Akshay Kumar, Fardeen Khan, Riteish Deshmukh and Vidya Balan providing comic relief.

Though the film did not put the cash registers on fire, it did do reasonably good business.

“I am not sure if comedy is box-office medicine, but I can honestly tell you that making people laugh is more fruitful than trying to move them,” Sajid aptly said in an interview before the film’s release.

The month of September has other comic capers in the pipeline.

Priyadarshan, who is credited for rewriting the roles of comedy in Bollywood, will be presenting “Dhol” and “Bhul Bhulaiya” and Sanjay Sharma will be bearing his “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro”.

All these films have actors who have proven their yen for comedy.

Starting from the veterans like Sanjay Dutt, Akshay, Arshad Warsi and Javed Jaffrey, the newer crop of actors like Riteish, Ashish Chaudhary and Tusshar Kapoor will be seen at their comic best through the month.

Indu Mirani, trade analyst says that the only security blanket in a flailing year is romantic-comedies, action or drama.

“People reject entertainment that doesn’t entertain, which literally means making them laugh. Last year’s biggest hit was a comedy (’Lage Raho Munnabhai’),” he argues.

Interestingly, when it comes to comedy, the multiplex viewers are less demanding. They continue to patronise slapstick comedies that were made famous by Dhawan years ago. But when it comes to other genres, audiences are becoming more and more discerning.

Speaking to a trade weekly, filmmaker Ram Madhwani said: “It’s quite a unique paradox. In a way the forerunners of the multiplex boom are now showing to an audience that is missing in action. Mass-produced cinema still sells.”

Madhwani had made the offbeat “Let’s Talk” last year and he attributes the comic wave to the producers’ business sense rather than any special creative sense.

According to trade observer Taran Adarsh, comedy has gone more slapstick than ever before. But the winds of change blowing over Bollywood have not left this genre untouched.

Same week last year Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s “Lage Raho Munnabhai” had struck a chord with the elite, the yuppie crowd, the common man, hoi polloi… all sections of moviegoers.

“Dhamaal” with its zero vulgar quotient is also a welcome change.

Dhamaal” will have some competition from “Heyy Babyy” which belongs to the same genre and was released last week. The other release of the last week, “Ramgopal Varma Ki Aag” will be no competition for the two comic capers.

In fact, the much-hyped film said to be an adaptation of Bollywood’s most successful movie “Sholay” did not even manage a good opening in spite of the presence of actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Ajay Devgan.

Eros International announced a stupendous opening of ‘Heyy Babyy’, directed by Sajid Khan, which released on 24th August’07. The film promises to be a box office success grossing over Rs. 41 crores worldwide in just its opening weekend. The film has also touched UK top 10 in the same period.Starring the comedy trio Akshay Kumar, Fardeen Khan and Ritesh Deshmukh in lead roles with a new glamorous look for Vidya Balan, ‘Heyy Babyy’ was one of the highly anticipated comedies this year. It is based on the lives of 3 men sworn to bachelorhood who suddenly find their dating and mating ritual irreparably destroyed when a dimpled little roommate lands up on their doorstep – complete with her crib, pacifier and dirty nappy.

Mr. Sunil Lulla, President, Eros International, India said, “Audience reactions world-wide to Heyy Babyy have been extremely encouraging. With Sajid Khan’s direction and talent like Akshay, Fardeen, Ritesh and Vidya, Heyy Babyy was bound to be a stupendous hit.”

The coming Friday will see the release of Willard Caroll’s Salman Khan, Ali Larter and Nandana Sen starrer, MARIGOLD and Rakhi Sawant’s BUDDHA MAR GAYA. Given the fact that MARIGOLD has not been publicized properly and the music has not really caught on, the movie may not achieve much at the box-office, though with Salman Khan fans one never can say! On the other hand, BUDDHA MAR GAYA, caters to a particular segment of the audience at the ‘B’ and ‘C’ centres, but its greatest weakness is that it has no real stars and that will restrict its appeal amongst the front benchers, even in the smaller centres.

Last week saw the release of Sunny Deol’s KAAFILA, Vishal Bhardwaj’s, THE BLUE UMBRELLA and Shah Rukh Khan’s CHAKDE! INDIA. The Sunny starrer looked a good movie on paper but turned out to be a badly made and delayed product. Even Sunny was not in his elements and with the music too not making a mark, KAAFILA embarked on a poor start in Bombay, and even in the Deol heartland of North and Central India, the opening was weak. Vishal Bhardwaj’s well-made, THE BLUE UMBRELLA, even with a mindblowing Pankaj Kapur performance, had a poor to weak start (released only in Bombay, Delhi-U.P. and Bengal). But that was expected. Coming to Yash Raj’s Shah Rukh Khan starrer, CHAKDE! INDIA, the movie started on a slow note on Friday, but the collections started picking up from the evening show of first day itself. As the weekend progressed, the rise in collections was almost magical and the collections touched 100 percent on Sunday. As we had predicted, the performance in metros and big cities is the best. As things stand today, the movie is expected to be a successful comeback of sorts for Yash Raj. Coming to the Overseas, CHAKDE! INDIA disappointed in the usually ’safe as Fort Knox’ circuit for Shah Rukh Khan, as it collected a very ordinary $259,871 from UK and a so-so $351,887 from US. The makers are however quite hopeful of a pick-up.

Anubhav Sinha’s CASH held on for the weekend and to an extent on Monday also, but Tuesday onwards the movie fell heavily. Still as we had said, the first week numbers are quite impressive, taking into account the cast of the movie. Checking out the numbers, CASH collected 2.45 crores from Bombay, 69 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 2.75 lakhs from Himmatnagar, 11.70 lakhs from Rajkot, 4.60 lakhs from Jamnagar, 6.45 lakhs from Bhavnagar, 2.65 lakhs from Gandhidham, 1.55 lakhs from Bhuj, 1.50 lakhs from Adipur, 2.90 lakhs from Solapur, 5.80 lakhs from Nasik, 1.57 crores from Delhi city, 26 lakhs from Gurgaon, 11.60 lakhs from Faridabad, 23.75 lakhs from Noida, 11.30 lakhs from Ghaziabad, 11.50 lakhs from Kanpur, 24 lakhs from Lucknow, 5 lakhs from Agra, 7.80 lakhs from Varanasi, 2.90 lakhs from Meerut, 1.80 lakhs from Meerut, 16.80 lakhs from Nagpur, 2 lakhs from Jabalpur, 2.65 lakhs from Amravati, 2.70 lakhs from Akola, 1.70 lakhs from Korba, 3.40 lakhs from Raipur, 1.40 lakhs from Raigarh, 2.40 lakhs from Bhilai, 1.75 lakhs from Durg, 1.50 lakhs from Jagdalpur, 1.40 lakhs from Chandrapur, 1.10 lakhs from Yavatmal, 1 lakh each from Sagar and Pusad, 2.40 lakhs from Bilaspur, 14 lakhs from Indore, 1.65 lakhs from Sehore, 1 lakh from Ujjain, 18.30 lakhs from Jaipur, 2.55 lakhs from Ajmer, 2.10 lakhs from Guwahati, 66.70 lakhs from Calcutta, 73.40 lakhs from Hyderabad and 2.80 lakhs from Aurangabad. During its first week in India, CASH managed to collect an impressive 17 crores from India. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about its Overseas performance as it managed to collect only $208,968 from UK.

Anil Kapoor’s 20 crore venture, the Akshaye Khanna starrer, GANDHI MY FATHER, failed to impress the audience. As per some reliable trade sources, theatre director Feroz Abbas Khan failed to realise that he was making a movie and not a stage play and the result is there for all to see. In the first week, GANDHI MY FATHER has collected 82.50 lakhs from Bombay, 13.50 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 1 lakh each from Jamnagar and Nasik, 27 lakhs from Delhi city, 1.85 lakhs from Faridabad, 7.20 lakhs from Gurgaon, 5.85 lakhs from Noida, 2.60 lakhs from Lucknow, 1.20 lakhs from Nagpur, 3.50 lakhs from Indore, 12 lakhs from Calcutta and 6.20 lakhs from Hyderabad. In its first week from India, GANDHI MY FATHER collected around 2.50 crores and given the budget and the heavy selling price, the movie is a disaster. In the Overseas too, GANDHI MY FATHER has failed. Just for records, it grossed $191,060 in UK and $226,526 in the US.

After the success of the colorised version of MUGHAL-E-AZAM, a whole lot of producers were toying with the idea of colorising their old BandW films. Unfortunately, the colour dreams of those producers will remain just dreams after the debacle of B.R. Chopra’s NAYA DAUR, in all its coloured glory. The Dilip Kumar, Vijayantimala and Ajit starrer collected 23 lakhs from Bombay, 5 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 5.70 lakhs from Delhi city, 1 lakh from Kanpur, 2 lakhs from Lucknow, 1 lakh each from Agra and Varanasi, 1.75 lakhs from Meerut, 3.40 lakhs from Jaipur, 6.50 lakhs from Hyderabad and 1 lakh from Aurangabad. In its first week, NAYA DAUR barely managed to touch the crore mark from India. In short, the movie became a failure during the ‘naya daur’!

After two stupendous weeks, the collections of David Dhawan’s Govinda, Salman, Lara and Katrina starrer, PARTNER, fell. Still, the film managed good shares. In the third week, PARTNER collected 1.33 crores from Bombay, 22.50 lakhs from Ahmedabad, 1.80 lakhs from Himmatnagar, 5.10 lakhs from Rajkot, 2.30 lakhs from Jamnagar, 1.25 lakhs from Bhavnagar, 2.70 lakhs from Solapur, 1.80 lakhs from Gandhidham, 2.70 lakhs from Nasik, 63 lakhs from Delhi city, 8.50 lakhs from Gurgaon, 5 lakhs from Faridabad, 4.70 lakhs from Ghaziabad, 3.20 lakhs from Kanpur, 12.80 lakhs from Lucknow, 4 lakhs from Agra, 3.40 lakhs from Varanasi, 1.30 lakhs from Bareilly, 8.20 lakhs from Nagpur, 2.30 lakhs from Jabalpur, 2.70 lakhs from Amravati, 1.60 lakhs from Akola, 1.30 lakhs from Bhilai, 3.15 lakhs from Raipur, 1.50 lakhs from Chandrapur, 2.35 lakhs from Bhopal, 8.20 lakhs from Indore, 1 lakh each from Sehore and Ujjain, 16.20 lakhs from Jaipur, 1.50 lakhs from Guwahati, 26.20 lakhs from Calcutta, 22 lakhs from Hyderabad and 1.90 lakhs from Aurangabad. During the week, PARTNER collected around 7 crores, for total of nearly 55.50 crores in three weeks from India and is now a superhit. In the Overseas, PARTNER has grossed $1,585,659 from UK and $1,062,840 from the US and is a good hit.

Farah Khan ’s Om Shanti Om that stars Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan in the lead has become a much sought after film.

Baba Films, production and distribution company, has offered a record Rs 11 crore for the rights to the Mumbai Circuit, easily surpassing the highest amount ever paid for the territory of Rs 8.5 crore for Jaaneman .

SRK’s Red Chillies Entertainment has reportedly sold the world rights for the film to Eros International for between Rs 72-75 crore.

Explaining their readiness to shell out the big bucks for the film, Baba Films executive director, Rakesh Upadhyay, says, “The film is releasing during the Diwali period when we can get a clear run due to vacations. Farah Khan had earlier had a huge commercial success with Main Hoon Na . We are confident of the film’s success at the box-office.”

January 4, 2008

- Manthan Ek Kashmakash
- Rama Rama Kya Hai Dramaaa

January 11, 2008

- Bombay To Bangkok
- Halla Bol
- My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves

February 1, 2008

- Sunday

February 8, 2008

- Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na
- Superstar

February 15, 2008

- Chal Chala Chal
- Roshan
- Ru Ba Ru
- Jodhaa Akbar

February 2008

- Anamika
- Chala Murari Murder Karne!
- Do Aur Do Paanch
- Ek - The Power Of One
- Hello
- Race
- The Great Indian Butterfly
- Wednesday
- Woodstock Villa