MUMBAI: Wizards have invaded the Indian box office. Warner Bros’ Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince has been received well by muggles in India and the world over. On the other hand, Vishesh Films’ Jashnn has taken a poor opening at the box office. The movie’s occupancy has been approximately 15 – 20 per cent across theatres.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which has taken a brilliant opening worldwide, opened to approximately 80 per cent collections on Thursday in India. However, there was a slight drop on Friday, wherein collection was in the range of 50 – 60 per cent. As was reported by Businessofcinema.com, the movie collected $104 million on Day 1 worldwide.

A source in Warner Bros Pictures India said, "The paid previews of the movie has collected Rs 15 million (Rs 1.5 crore) in India, which is the highest for 2009. It has even beaten the paid preview numbers for Kambakkth Ishq. Moreover, the movie opened to a very good response in India on Thursday."

PVR Cinemas programming head Prakhar Joshi added, "The paid previews of Harry Potter have been well received at our properties. The advance booking for Saturday and Sunday has also been good."

The India opening weekend collections will be available on Monday.

According to information available with Businessofcinema.com, at PVR’s properties in Saket, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Bangalore, the paid previews had between 97 – 100 per cent occupancy. At other properties like Faridabad, Ambience Mall, Gurgaon, Lower Parel, Juhu, the paid previews had occupancy in the range of 80 – 90 per cent. Even the movie’s Hindi version garnered between 60 – 80 per cent occupancy across PVR theatres in Aurangabad and Latur.

On the other hand, Jashnn, which stars Adhyayan Suman, Anjana Sukhani, Shahana Goswami and Humayun Saeed failed to excite the audience. Speaking to Businessofcinema.com about the movie’s opening, Vishesh Films’ Mukesh Bhatt says, "The opening of the film has not been fantastic, it has been average since it’s not a very big budget film with big stars. However, having said that, I am happy that the film has been appreciated a lot and all the response has been positive."