'Ghajini' rocks overseas box office

The latest Aamir Khan starrer is turning out to be a crowd-puller not just at home but abroad as well.

Ghajini is emerging into a box office phenomenon just a week after its release. The film grossed USD 4 million, outside of India, in its opening Christmas weekend. Worldwide (including India) the film has raked in a whopping Rs 900 million within just five days of its release, according to distributors.

BIG Pictures was the distributor of the film across 22 countries overseas. Jawahar Sharma, COO - International Film Business, BIG Pictures, said that the film's opening weekend performance in the Middle East and North America has set new records.


In North America the film opened with weekend collections of USD 1.4 million, the second highest in 2008. In Middle East the opening weekend collection stood at USD 0.92 million, highest opening for a Hindi film.

Australia saw the film doing business of Australian dollars 254,000. The film will also open in Myanmar, Uganda, Malaysia and Morocco in coming weeks, Sharma said.

'Ghajini' also opened simultaneously in UK, Ireland, Norway, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, New Zealand, Fiji, Mauritius, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia where it has broken all previous records including that of any previous Aamir Khan starrer.

'Ghajini's' performance demonstrates that the overseas audiences are equally accepting the quality action films, which are still a rarity coming out of India. We are extremely pleased with the film's opening, which has created benchmarks in various international markets like North America, Australia and Middle East, Sharma said.

A Geetha Arts production, 'Ghajini' is a remake of Ghajini (Tamil) also directed by A.R. Murugadoss . The film stars Aamir Khan, Asin , Jiah Khan and Pradeep Rawat.

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