Punjabi film Ishqan De Lekhe is finding some good fortune at the box office. The Gurnam Bhullar led romantic drama grossed Rs. 7.50 crore approx in its first week. Of this, Rs. 4.25 crore (Rs. 3.60 crore nett) came from the domestic market of India, while another Rs. 3.25 crore (USD 350K) came from overseas.
The numbers may appear modest, and they are, but what makes them count is the trend they have come up with. The film started low, with an opening day of just over Rs. 40 lakh in India and Rs. 75 lakh worldwide. It made good gains over the weekend; it was on weekdays when it really showed up with steady holds. The last day of the week, i.e. Thursday in India, was around Rs. 60 lakh, 50 per cent higher than its opening day.
The film is performing well outside Punjab, which is normally not seen with smaller Punjabi films. The trend is also better, with day seven being almost thrice of its day one. The genre has probably helped with that. Most Punjabi films coming out are comedies; this is different, which may have gotten it some appeal in Delhi-NCR and Haryana.
The job is still not done. Although the film has low costs, it still needs to do more to cover them. The good thing is that it has the trend for it. Its Thursday base is good enough, and a normal trend will likely be enough. The problem with that is that it only has five days left until the storm, i.e. Dhurandhar: The Revenge, arrives. Therefore, it will need to continue doing better than normal. If it does so, it will be the first success for the industry in a while, especially domestically, which has seen a really long drought.