The advances of Laal Singh Chaddha and Raksha Bandhan have not been able to push like they should have since Monday and the final advance of Laal Singh Chaddha will remain below the advance of 83 and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and this is taking into account a long five day weekend instead of a normal three day weekend.

Raksha Bandhan on the other hand is not really an advance film so not much was expected and its likely to have an advance pretty much similar or a little lower to Samraat Prithviraj but over a longer five day period. The plus is that the film has a better advance than Laal Singh Chaddha in mass pockets so maybe current can do something as mass pockets are more driven by current. But it has to be noted that the advance is not good or something in mass pockets its just better than Laal Singh Chaddha which is the bigger film but has less interest in mass pockets.

Both films are the word of mouth films so it is not hugely surprisingly that the initial audience is not there in the current scenario as films with more initial appeal like Samraat Prithviraj, Shamshera and Bachchhan Pandey collected in the 10 crore nett range with the latter getting 12 crore nett due to Holi holiday. But due to day one being a holiday the advances were expected to be stronger especially for Laal Singh Chaddha due to its appeal in the bigger multiplexes where bulk of the advance comes from and Aamir Khan factor who has very few films and generally takes an advance.

The industry was expecting a 25-30 crore nett opening day between the films and its quite likely the industry will be disappointed again. But this will be partly due to the fact that many in the industry itself really believe in the type of content of Laal Singh Chaddha which we saw with 83 and also a section believes in a company called ormax where Laal Singh Chaddha was said to be taking a 17-20 crore nett opening when in reality it was more like 10-15 crore nett depending on how it goes on the day in mass pockets.

Simply put when any film does not hold initial appeal for the mass circuits then expectations have to come down to realistic levels as metros are not going to cover the shortfall in todays time. Here both Laal Singh Chaddha and Raksha Bandhan do not hold that appeal with the initial mass audience.