Top 10 Hollywood movies India fell for (Flashback 2009)

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NEW DELHI - Some of the Hollywood offerings that set the cash registers ringing at the box office in India were “Slumdog Millionaire”, “2012″ and “Terminator Salvation”.

IANS picks 10 most successful ones with varying subjects like doomsday, mutants, careening cars, drunk friends on a night out and an Oscar winning underdog drama:

1. “2012″: Director Roland Emmerich’s film, inspired by a global doomsday coinciding with the end of the Mayan calendar’s current cycle on Dec 21, 2012, raked in around Rs.90 crore here.

Having an ensemble cast that includes John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton and Jimi Mistry, the Columbia Pictures presentation is still running in theatres.

2. “Slumdog Millionaire”: Winner of eight Academy Awards and four Golden Globes, the underdog drama directed by British filmmaker Danny Boyle not only succeeded in putting India in the spotlight, it also spelled magic at the ticket window.

Starring Dev Patel and Freida Pinto in the lead with music by A.R. Rahman, the film had the second biggest opening for a Hollywood movie here this year with collections close to Rs.38 crore.

3. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”: The sixth instalment in the Harry Potter franchise by director David Yates was another Hollywood offering that was well received here.

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, the fantasy-adventure carried forward the boy wizard’s story from “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” and earned about Rs.25 crore.

4. “Terminator Salvation”: One of the most anticipated movies of the year, the fourth instalment in the “Terminator” series scorched the Indian summer screens and collected approximately Rs.19 crore. Directed by McG, it stars Christian Bale and Sam Worthington. Arnold Schwarzenegger too made an appearance.

5. “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”: The part two of “Tranformers” managed close to Rs.18 crore here. Director Michael Bay’s sci-fi action was about humans-caught-in-war-between-alien machines. Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox revived their lead roles in it.

6. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”: Focusing on the genesis of adamantium-clawed mutant Wolverine, the superhero film was a prequel to the “X-Men” film series. Having grossed more than the overall collections of all previous three instalments worldwide, it didn’t get the same response here. Directed by Gavin Hood and starring Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber in the lead, the film collected Rs.14 crore.

7. “Fast and Furious”: Part four is an interquel between the second and third films “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003) and “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” (2006). Directed by Justin Lin, it made close to Rs.14 crore at the box office here.

Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster reprise their roles from the earlier series in the film.

8. “Angels & Demons”: An adaptation of Dan Brown’s novel by the same name, it is the sequel to “The Da Vinci Code”. Directed by Ron Howard, this Tom Hanks starrer managed to rake in Rs.12 crore.

9. “The Hangover”: It was one of the unexpected hits of the year - the Todd Phillips comedy broke all records for any such movie. Raking in around Rs.10 crore, the Warner Bros. presentation went jam-packed even in its third week in theatre here.

Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham, Justin Bartha and Jeffrey Tambor’s impeccable comic timing made it a good watch.

10. “Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”: The 3-D computer animated film brings back to screen the ice age surviving friends Sid, Ellie, Manny and Diego. Co-directed by Carlos Saldanha and Michael Thurmeier, it made Rs.9 crore in India.

Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, John Leguizamo, Seann William Scott and Josh Peck lent their voices for the characters.

(Robin Bansal can be contacted at robin.b@ians.in)