MUMBAI: Excel Entertainment’s Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd opened worldwide on 23 February 2007 to a good overseas opening.
A medium budget movie, Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd was released with a total of 53 prints by Studio 18 in the overseas market. “In the UAE market, the movie was released with eight prints and has collected 80,000 dirhams on the opening day itself in Dubai,” says Studio 18 senior vice president international business and home entertainment Ashoka Holla.
According to industry analysts, this opening day collections in Dubai indicate that the cost of prints (approximately $ 10,000 or 36,700 dirhams) have been recovered by the distributors.
Producer Ritesh Sidhwani, who has movies like Dil Chahta Hai, Lakshya and more recently the Shah Rukh Khan starrer Don to his credit, says, “We are extremely happy with the Dubai opening day figures for the movie. I’m told that it is more than some other big budget Bollywood movies that have been released in that market. In India too, the opening has been good and almost 95 per cent of the people who are coming out of the theatres are liking the movie. However, the collection figures here will be known only after a week.”
Adds Holla, “Every film has an audience and the important thing is to recognise that audience. We spent about Rs 10 million (Rs one crore) on P & A (prints and advertising) activities in the overseas market.”
Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd has been helmed by debutant director Reema Kagti and stars Shabana Azmi, Boman Irani, Abhay Deol, Ranvir Shorey, Dia Mirza, Minissha Lamba, Sandhya Mridul, Vikram Chatwal, Amisha Patel and Karan Khanna with Arjun Rampal in a special appearance.
