Deepa Mehta’s Canadian musical/comedy Bollywood/Hollywood opened Oct. 27 with a weekend take of $306,000, representing an impressive $8,700-per-screen average.

By comparison, Men With Brooms opened in March with $1 million ($5,000 per screen) and Duct Tape Forever opened in April with $220,000 ($2,600 per screen).

In winning its opening weekend’s box-office race at theaters such as Toronto’s Bayview Village, Square One, Cedarbrae and Eglinton Town Square, and Vancouver’s Strawberry Hill, Bollywood/Hollywood went on to rank 10th in Canada and 24th in North America.

The feature opened in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Halifax, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria, Peterborough, Waterloo and Cambridge and expanded to Winnipeg and Nanaimo on Nov. 1.

According to distributor Mongrel Media of Toronto, second weekend box office was $226,000, or $6,300 per screen. In its first 10 days, Bollywood/Hollywood’s total box office was $657,000.

‘We are aiming at $1 million for the run,’ says Mongrel president Hussain Amarshi. ‘We’re going to do that and more. Our per-screen average is fantastic. It’s great to produce these kind of results.’

-www.mongrelmedia.com