7aum Arivu (Tamil+Telugu Combined) beats Mankatha Collections
Much awaited BO result for US is out. 7aum Arivu (Tamil + Telugu combined) reached the top of US Box Office(including Canada), exceeding Mankatha's collection. However if you deduct Telugu collections, Mankatha beat 7aum Arivu to retain the #1 position in US Box Office for 2011.
7aum Arivu
- 7aum Arivu made $290,000 from 61 screens(including Canada) over the Diwali weekend. Based on the current trajectory, 7aum Arivu is expected to recover the money by next weekend. The split between Tamil and Telugu for 7aum Arivu is not available since the US Box Office has not kept separate records for each.
- 7aum Arivu gross collections benefited by wide release strategy adopted by the distributors. The trade-off with this strategy is the erosion of profit margin due to the cost of additional digital and physical prints.
Velayudham
- Velayudham's collected $108,000 (including Canada BO) over the long weekend with per screen average slightly higher than 7aum Arivu.
- Velayudham's collection is substantially higher than that of Kavalan's dismal performance earlier this year. Velayudham is an important turnaround movie for Vijay since this is the first time that US distributors have made profits on a Vijay movie ever since Pokkiri.
- Vettaikaran was the last one that had a good start but dropped drastically after the first 2 days due to massive success of 3 Idiots and Avatar, both stealing the Tamil audience from Vettaikaran in the US.
| Movie | Screens | Collections | Collections(in Rs.) | Per Screen Average |
|
7aum Arivu+ 7th Sense(Telugu) |
61 | $294,000 | Rs. 1.4 Crores | $4,820 |
| Velayudham | 22 | $108,000 | Rs. 52 Lakhs | $4,920 |
| Mankatha | 29 | $260,000 | Rs. 1.17 Crores | $9,034 |
Bottomline: Mankatha is still the winner of US Box Office for 2011
- Regarding 7aum Arivu combined collection, it is roughly estimated that around $40,000 to $50,000 may have been contributed by the 7th Sense (Telugu). After deducting the Telugu collections, Mankatha pips ahead of 7aum Arivu in gross collections for the opening long weekend.
- Secondly, Mankatha made comparable gross collection with respect to 7aum Arivu, despite Mankatha having half the number of total prints in the US and Canada market. Average collections per screen for Mankatha ($9034/screen) is almost double that of 7aum Arivu($4820/screen) and Velayudham($4920/screen) making Mankatha the most profitable movie of 2011 in the US/Canada market.