Bollywood's 'Ra.One' opens strong worldwide

"Ra.One" is a big budget superhero film that has been called the most ambitious, special-effects-heavy, and most expensive film to ever come out of Bollywood. The marketing campaign was pervasive and aggressive, but it appears to have paid off, as the movie grossed roughly $35 million worldwide in its first five days of release, which is a record for an Indian movie.

"'Ra.One' is without doubt the most hyped Bollywood movie ever," Shailesh Kapoor, chief executive of Ormax Media, tells the New York Times. "The downside is that when you overpromise and under deliver, the mismatch can be too wide for comfort. The negativity is more severe."

Kapoor says the real test will be in week two, when the word-of-mouth reviews rather than marketing and promotion will be getting moviegoers into the seats.

The movie synopsis describes "Ra.One" as follows: "A video game developer's world spirals out of control when his shape-shifting indestructible virtual creation becomes all too real."

The movie has been released in the United States and in early 2012 will come to South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Russia, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Brazil, Spain, Italy and Greece.