Both the new releases of this week, Vipul Shah's COMMANDO and Rohan Sippy's NAUTANKI SAALA, were never expected to set the box-office on fire, nor was it the case! Unfortunately the 20-25 percent start (all India average) for both the films was below expectations. While COMMANDO- A ONE MAN ARMY scored primarily at the single screens, NAUTANKI SAALA fared best at the multiplexes (especially those of major centres).

As the day progressed, the collections of NAUTANKI SAALA saw some improvement at metro multiplexes while COMMANDO did not pick up on the same level but improved at the single screens of massy centres. As things stand, there is little to choose between the two new releases (even with the not so good collections) but the improvement is likely to be more for NAUTANKI SAALA, as compared to COMMANDO (despite more prints), due to the high end audience who frequent the multiplexes during the weekend.

Meanwhile, after a reasonably good opening weekend, last Friday's David Dhawan directed CHASHME BADDOOR saw rock steady collections during the week days as well, and the film ended up netting 29-30 crore during the opening week from India. Given the reasonable second Friday, and the 20 crore all inclusive cost CHASHME BADDOOR is all set to be the second clean hit of 2013, after Subhash Kapoor's JOLLY L.L.B..