Mumbai: Bollywood’s top director Sanjay Leela Bhansali showed appreciation towards audience for seeing the movie in spite of awful reviews.

Saawariya debuts together with the enormously glorified Shah Rukh Khan starrer "Om Shanti Om" on last Friday.

Regardless of the film’s excellent opening, its Indian collection chop down aggressively after a week’s time as critics went down heavily on the film for its thin story and loose grip on the plot.

"I'm so happy that the people have loved “Saawariya” and are going back to watch the film in spite of the negative waves created about the film by some people," Mr. Bhansali told.

"Therefore, I have immense respect for the audiences of India who have made up their mind to see “Saawariya” for themselves,” he also said.

Despite the fact that Bhansali’s movie has been hit hard by "Om Shanti Om" in box office collections, it has still done well to gross $14 million worldwide in the opening weekend.

“I'm very happy that internationally “Saawariya” has received such wonderful response on the box office as well as the critics,” Bhansali added.