Mohenjo Daro and Rustom will start the season of clashes with another two scheduled in the next six months. All these clashes involve big films and big stars as everybody looks for holidays but this factor is more than negated by a clash.  There was the Bajirao Mastani v Dilwale clash last Christmas which was bad enough but at least there the films were fighting over a two week period which is very good for business due to the Christmas / New Year break but here they are just fighting for one day and that too a Monday.  Independence Day which is a national holiday will be on Monday. There is Raksha Bandhan on Thursday but that is a partial holiday and it will be the 7th day for the both films and lets say they both work it will hardly give them 2 crore benefit each. 

Last Christmas saw Bajirao Mastani getting appreciation especially in Maharashtra while Dilwale found no takers though box office was big in West Bengal due to craze of Shahrukh Khan there. Bajirao Mastani went and did close to 185 crore nett which it would probably have not done if released in another period but its share was just 84 crore which it may have done if released in another week. The share was lost because it could not take an initial against Dilwale. This is where the problem with Mojenjo Daro and Rustom lies can they take an initial when pitted against each other, there is very limited advance for both films so its not going to really big numbers that is certain. This year films featuring likes of Tiger Shroff and Varun Dhawan have taken 12 and 11 crore nett initials and these are not even established stars and here there are films with Akshay Kumar and Hrithik Roshan and its no certainty they will beat the those films of lesser stars on day one. In an industry where success is so limited this should not really be happening.

The biggest pluses of both films are the actors Akshay Kumar and Hrithik Roshan but with both films not really being for all sections of the audience it does lessen the initial factor of these stars. Rustom has a Mumbai based story so most of that circuit should be for it while Mohenjo Daro will probably take the Central markets and also Hrithik Roshan is one of the few Hindi film stars with a pull down South so it should lead there also. North India will depend on content as neither films look appealing for that audience as far as initial goes. The other plus for Rustom is lower costs so even if lower than Mohenjo Daro but collecting reasonably it will okay as far as recovery is concerned. 

The screen count will be in favour of Mohenjo Daro due to the single screens though multiplexes in metros have given a show or two more to Rustom. Its looking like Mohenja Daro will top 2500 screens while Rustom will be around 2000 screens at the moment. Both may go higher in the final count but the gap of around 500 screens will probably remain.

It will be close on day one but more important is the number, if they clock up 14-15 crore nett each it will be a good result and 28-30 crore nett combined is not a huge task but lesser figures and it becomes all about that Saturday and Sunday growth and if the appreciation is similar then even the growth will be tempered as the status quo remains.