Debut director Vivek Sharma's Bhootnath has scored the 3rd biggest opening of the first half of 2008, and the 2nd biggest among solo releases this year. The Amitabh Bachchan starrer had a fairly sizeable weekend with collections scaling 90% by Sunday. There was a typical mid-week drop and the collections remained steady over the weekdays for the most part. While overseas figures claimed by Eros are once again in dispute, in India, unlike Bachchan's last few releases, the collections piled up over the week by Bhoothnath are enough to say that among solo starrers, Bhootnath's opening week figures are shadowing the much more expensive Jodha&Akbar at a number of centers, and are ahead of Yash Raj's multistarrer Tashan starring Saif Ali Khan- Kareena Kapoor and Akshay Kumar, as well as other successes and high profile releases of the year like U Me aur Hum, Krazy 4, One Two Three, Sunday, Halla Bol etc. In Mumbai, Bhootnath is expected to collect between 4-5 crores for the week.

Opening Week collections in Mumbai in 2008 (Nett)
=====================================================

Race - 5.8 cr [multistarrer]
Jodhaa Akbar - 5.2 cr [Hrithik Roshan]
Krazy 4 - 3.2 cr [multistarrer]
U Me aur Hum - 2.9 cr [Ajay Devgan]
Sunday - 2.4 cr [Ajay Devgan]
Tashan - 2.0 cr [multistarrer]
Halla Bol - 1.1 cr [Ajay Devgan]

Mimoh Chakravarty's debut release Jimmy, which released opposite Bhootnath, has emerged a monumental disaster of a debut for the star-son. Its Mumbai haul is not even 1 crores.

Meanwhile this upcoming week, an Emran Hashmi starrer Jannat, once again releases to a paltry opening. The film will be lucky to do 4-5 crores all over India with the opening bookings hovering around a negligible 5%.

Collections of all films have been affected somewhat due to IPL telecasts reaching their stretch run. Bhoothnath however seems to be making out with the morning shows showing proportionately higher turnouts than the evening shows. In terms of future releases however, next week will see Don Muthuswamy, Dhoom Dhadaka and Ghatotkach battle it out, followed by Sikandar Kher's debut Woodstock Villa on May 30.