Aamir-starrer recovers costs at Fanaa-tic pace

Film grosses Rs32 cr in first week — the biggest opening in recent times.

Controversy kills the cat. But, for Bollywood, it has turned out to be the golden goose.

The box-office collections of the Aamir Khan-starrer Fanaa, which courted controversy and was unofficially banned in Gujarat, has managed to recover its production costs in the first week itself.

"Fanaa was made with a budget of Rs30 crore and it has so far collected Rs32 crore in India alone," a spokesperson of Yash Raj Films, the makers of Fanaa, said on Friday.

Insiders said this was a record in the history of Indian cinema. "Fanaa has witnessed the biggest opening in recent times and it is still going strong," said trade analyst Taran Adarsh. Trade sources point out that the film has broken previous collection records held by Mangal Pandey (Rs18 crore in the first week) and Rang De Basanti, the year's biggest grosser so far (Rs15 crore in the first week).

The film, which was panned by critics, chronicles the lives of a blind girl who falls in love with a Kashmiri separatist. "Fanaa may go on to become the biggest money spinner of the year," said Devang Sampat, marketing manager of Cinemax.

However, industry sources say the collection figures announced by producers should not be taken at face value. "The figures are not always authentic, as there is no reliable method of gauging collection figures in Bollywood," said trade analyst Amod Mehra.

He said the figures provided are the gross collections, of which 40 per cent would go to the government as entertainment tax, while the remaining 60 per cent would be split equally between the distributors and exhibitors.