Notebook box office collection Day 1: Salman Khan produced film gets decent start

Notebook box office collection Day 1: Salman Khan produced film gets decent start

The USP of Notebook is that it is being backed by Salman Khan Films. The film has introduced new talents, Pranutan Bahl and Zaheer Iqbal, to the world of Hindi cinema. The cast of the film also includes Mir Sarwar and Muazzam Bhat. Directed by Nitin Kakkar, Notebook is based on the Thai film A Teacher's Diary.

Based on Thai film A Teacher's Diary, Notebook is recommended to the audience looking for some old-world romance this weekend.

This week, two big Bollywood films opened in theatres - Nitin Kakar's Notebook and Vidyut Jammwal-starrer Junglee. Out of the two, Notebook has minted around Rs 1.5-2 crore at the domestic box office by the end of its first day, as per early estimates.

The USP of Notebook is that it is being backed by Salman Khan Films. The film has introduced new talents, Pranutan Bahl and Zaheer Iqbal, to the world of Hindi cinema. The cast of the film also includes Mir Sarwar and Muazzam Bhat. Directed by Nitin Kakkar, Notebook is based on the Thai film A Teacher's Diary.

Notebook tells the story of an innocent budding romance between two teachers in a secluded school on the Wular Lake in Kashmir, who have never met each other. Kabir Kaul (Zaheer Iqbal), an ex-army officer who decides to join his dad's school as a teacher. With no professional training in teaching, he finds it hard to deal with the kids, and that's when Firdaus's (Pranutan Bahl) diary comes to his rescue. A diary that is left behind by the previous teacher in the desk drawer. The diary opens the door to Firdaus's story, and Kabir cannot stop falling irreversibly in love with her.

Based on Thai film A Teacher's Diary, Notebook is recommended to the audience looking for some old-world romance this weekend.

While Pranutan Bahl is the daughter of actor Mohnish Bahl and granddaughter of actress Nutan, actor Zaheer Iqbal is the son of Salman Khan's childhood friend Iqbal Ratnasi. The budget of Zaheer and Pranutan starrer film being reported as nearly 2.4 crore.

Reports showed that Notebook box office collection started on a slow note on Friday and the debut could hardly find much of an audience with only 5% occupancy in the morning. Post noon shows as well, it didn't get a considerable response from the audience. One of the factors could be the release of action-adventure film Junglee, that has a box office clash with Notebook. Junglee features Vidyut Jammwal along with Pooja Sawant, Asha Bhat and Atul Kulkarni.

Also, another reason it didn't seem like an easy run for the latest Hindi releases- Junglee & Notebook, was the last week released biggie Kesari is already ruling over the box office. The figures are little better in Mumbai but very low in the North and other areas where Kesari is dominating.  

Both Notebook and Junglee weren't able to survive against Akshay Kumar's Kesari as the film has managed to collect Rs 105.86 crore within 8 days of its release, reports Bollywood trade analyst Taran Adarsh. Kesari will remain the top film this week as its collections are better than both the new releases put together on Friday.

Furthermore, the two-hour romantic film is an easy breezy film lacks drama. "With almost no scenes with each other till the very end, the chemistry is very much missing," quoted Charu Thakkar, India Today critic, who gave Notebook 2.5 out of 5 stars, but praised the performances of Zaheer and Pranutan.

(Edited by Rupa Burman Roy)