Dhurandhar is flying at the box office, with the film looking to flirt with the Rs. 50 crore nett mark on its second Saturday. By the end of the matinee shows, collections are running at roughly double that of Friday, and with the usual surge during the evening and night shows, the film should clear Rs. 50 crore mark. But even if not, it is going to be close in the high-40s.
The growth from Friday will be around 60-65 per cent, which is a strong surge in general, but at this level of business, it’s phenomenal. The advances were indicating even stronger growth, but the longer runtime naturally limits showcasing, leading to capacity constraints during prime hours and fewer walk-ups. This was evident with Animal, which saw relatively muted weekend growth for the same reason. Dhurandhar, however, has managed to do better.
This is once again going to be a record day for Hindi films, obliterating the previous best of Rs. 41 crore by Pushpa 2 (Hindi) and by quite a margin. The second weekend is on track to collect over Rs. 130 crore, which will take it around Rs. 325 crore nett. The second week will comfortably cross Rs. 200 crore nett.
Dhurandhar has now become a cultural phenomenon, getting into mainstream media and conversation, with its references to real-life events and political themes. This is reminiscent of the director’s previous film, Uri: The Surgical Strike, which saw a similar thing happening. That film opened to Rs. 8 crore nett on its first day and went on to collect Rs. 245 crore nett. This time, the trend isn’t just better but on a much larger scale.
The film is going to enjoy a huge holiday period of Christmas-New Year holidays at the end of the month, which is considered to be the most lucrative window at the box office. The stage is perfectly set for Dhurandhar to explode even further. Several records on the table, including the highest grosser of the year (Kantara: Chapter 1), the highest grossing original Hindi film of all time (Stree 2) and the highest grossing Bollywood film of all time (Jawan).
