Riots, Records Collide as Bollywood Epic Becomes First Big Sleeper of 2010

Fox Searchlight had what could most charitably called a schizophrenic 2009, following its long-coveted Best Picture Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire with a succession of underwhelming or just flat-out terrible late-year releases like Gentleman Broncs and Amelia. And then came the rebound: Crazy Heart, which the mini-major expertly dropped into this year's Oscar race; and much more surprisingly, My Name is Khan, a nearly three-hour romance/road movie featuring Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan as an Asperger's-afflicted immigrant attempting to win his true love's heart while mounting an Islam-awareness campaign all the way to Washington, D.C. Or something. I think. Like almost every other critic in America, I haven't seen it. But hundreds of thousands of ticketbuyers have, making Khan the first sleeper hit of the young year -- and not just a little bit controversial either.

Khan earned a total of $2.275 million in its first four days on 120 screens, drawing a per-theater average of nearly $19,000. That outperformed the more obvious holiday blockbuster Valentine's Day by about $750 per screen, doing so on a record-breaking President's Day weekend with virtually no conventional advertising, exactly one positive review and no word-of-mouth outside the Indian community. A Movieline tipster who attended a screening Friday night wrote that even a representative from Fox "looked very confused and confessed she had not seen a single ad for it. I hadn't either, leading me to wonder how the hell all the Indians heard about it. Did Fox post exclusively ads in Hindu temples?"

Yes and no. Word-of-mouth was likely a bigger factor, particularly conservative Hindus' reactions to Khan's compassionate stance toward Muslims. (Khan himself was detained last year at Newark International Airport, causing a minor international incident.) That relationship played into the cross-cultural success of Slumdog, and this time around, Fox's day-and-date release strategy meant that anti-Khan riots in Mumbai on Friday got back to the United States in the early morning hours before the superstar's film opened here. With or without the ads, demand was primed.

But did Khan deliver? Our tipster says yes! Well, kind of:

Like most Bollywood movies, the humor was simple enough to be understood by people who speak English as a second language. Unlike most Bollywood movies, there were NO big dance numbers. No-one's going to win any awards for this except maybe the cinematographer (some of the shots were quite beautiful). Shah Rukh Khan goes full retard for his role as Khan. I'm confident the entire audience understood how ridiculous the movie was as they were laughing at all of the wrong moments. I have no idea how it'll play outside of Indian audiences but I think it has the potential to go viral, or at least get angry press releases from the NAACP, autism activists, and Republicans.

Now that's when you know you're on to something. Welcome back, Searchlight!

· My Name is Khan [Box Office Mojo]