Om Shanti Om scores over Saawariya in the biggest-ever Bollywood box office battle

Tellingly, in Delhi's Chanakya theatre, the first week started with two shows of OSO and three of Saawariya, the second week's plans had four shows of OSO and only one of Saawariya.

The international figures are more clear and decisive. At the UK box office, OSO made a massive £5,18,845 at No. 7, just a little short of Tom Cruise's earnings of £6,58,282 for Lions For Lambs which opened No. 6, while Saawariya made £160,985 at No. 12. In the US, OSO opened No. 11 with $1.8 million while Saawariya came 24th with $542,000.

It's not as though people have not been disappointed in OSO. They have found it too clever, too boring in the second half. It's a film for Bollywood buffs than the general janta who may miss out on many of its allusions to the '70s Bollywood. But more people have been disappointed by Saawariya. Angry viewers have walked out in the middle and even demanded refund of their tickets. London filmmaker and critic Nasreen Munni Kabir felt Bhansali's version of Fyodor Dostoevsky classic White Nights comes across as "a film alive in the mind of the filmmaker and failing to come alive on screen...It did not move the audience and felt claustrophobic on those blue sets." A common audience response was summed up by the remark of a sardar kid sitting next to me who complained to his mother for bringing him to a film where "subah hoti hi nahin" (there is never a morning).

Saawariya might flop in theatres yet still make profits through sale of DVD and TV rights. But Vinod, Amod and Komal predict it will lose about Rs 20-25 crore. On the other hand, OSO has clearly increased SRK's already strong brand equity, says Vinod. And made Farah Khan a name to reckon with in Bollywood, the only successful woman filmmaker in a male world.

Amod thinks OSO will be SRK's fourth biggest after DDLJ, K2H2 and K3G. They project net gains of Rs 12-15 crore in Mumbai and Rs 20-25 crore in the overseas market alone. But SRK wants OSO to be the biggest film of his career. Will OSO rise up to that? Even if it makes the most money, will it have the resonance, the positive upsurge of a Chak De? As SRK as Om in OSO would say, "Picture abhi baki hai dost". It's still not The End.
It's a box office battle that has been more keenly contested than the general elections. The campaign started two months ahead with both contestants pulling out all stops to woo audiences from every platform—magazines, newspapers, TV channels, radio, style awards, fashion events, cricket matches and advertisements. They agreed to sing and dance in TV talent contests, launched their own lines of clothes, got into frenzied media tie-ups and feverishly promoted myriad brands. Issues like the nuclear deal took a backseat as the whole nation debated whether Om Shanti Om or Saawariya would emerge winner in what seemed set to be a neck-to-neck race. Amul even devised an ad around them: Savouriya, Eat at Om.

This Diwali weekend, the early indicators declared that Badshah Khan is one up on the Sony Pictures-Sanjay Leela Bhansali combine; SRK's one-man show has routed the first-ever Hollywood-Bollywood joint venture; and OSO is the loud cracker, while Saawariya hasn't quite set the screens on fire.

In Bollywood, it's hard to find proper accounting of a film's earnings. We haven't been able to develop a single, foolproof, standardised method of measuring a film's box-office success. Trade pundits are known to have stupidly miscalculated the potential of cult films like Rang De Basanti and Chak De! India, but celebrated duds like Himesh Reshamiyya's Aap Ka Surroor. So, while no definite figures are available on the two Bollywood biggies, for a change there is unanimity amongst the trade fraternity that OSO is a blockbuster, perhaps the biggest this year, while Saawariya is finding the going tough after a good start.

With his characteristic humour, SRK said they couldn't give a figure for OSO's earnings "because it's taking time to count the money". Unofficially, the distributors Eros are claiming it to be their fastest money-spinner, that will do the business of their other big 2007 hit, Partner, in just two weeks. They had paid Rs 75 crore for the film's distribution rights, a humungous amount which they hope to recover in one week itself. On the other hand, Sony Pictures claimed to have grossed Rs 50 crore in the first weekend in India, a figure arrived at through "a process which tracks down collections at the grassroots". Trade analysts were quick to rubbish it. "It takes time to know conclusive figures," said Amod Mehra. "It's impossible to get such figures with so many prints in circulation and with varied ticket prices," says trade analyst Vinod Mirani. "If Saawariya has made Rs 50 crore, then OSO would have made Rs 200 crore," says Komal Nahata, editor, Film Information.

Amod is merciless, saying Saawariya had only 70 per cent collections in the first weekend, Komal is even more brutal pegging them at a mere 35-40 per cent all India with 70 per cent in Mumbai and Delhi. However, trade site Ibosnetwork claims OSO opened with 90-100 per cent collections in multiplexes and a little less on single screens, while Saawariya opened at 80 per cent on Friday, then came down to 70 per cent on Saturday and just 50 per cent on Sunday. Boxofficeindia.com claims OSO opened to 95-100 per cent response while Saawariya started off 95-100 per cent at the multiplexes and 80-85 per cent in small screens, but collections had begun falling alarmingly to 30-35 per cent on Monday even as OSO held steady at 80-90 per cent. "The collections dropped faster than Ranbir's towel," says Komal, tongue-in-cheek. But Sony claims the fall was natural and that the positive word of mouth for Ranbir and Sonam was still pulling in the crowds.