MUMBAI: Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Eklavya – The Royal Guard, which released on 16 February 2007, has set a record by becoming the first Hindi film to manage a 109 per cent jump in collections on the second day, in North America.

Eros International’s Ken Naaz says, “Word of mouth publicity and good reviews help a good film usually get a 30 per cent jump in collections. A very good film gets a 50-60 per cent jump, but with Eklavya we saw a 109 per cent jump in collections on day two, which is unprecedented and indicates its growing popularity.”

The film has done well at the box office in Mumbai too. The first day collections in the Bombay territory for Eklavya are Rs 17.8 million (Rs 1.78 crore), 35 per cent more than the Rs 13.2 million (Rs 1.32 crore) collected by Lage Raho Munnabhai on the first day of its release. The first three day collections of Eklavya are approaching the Rs 55 million (Rs 5.5 crore) mark, which would equal that achieved by Lage Raho Munnabhai’s in its first three days.

An additional five prints were released mid-week in mainstream theatres in Los Angeles. Naaz added, “This is the first time that additional prints have been added in the middle of the week. The response has been outstanding and we are expecting to see much more euphoria created by this film in the coming weeks.”