Border 2 had a good first day of advances yesterday, selling 22,000 tickets at the two national chains (PVRINOX and Cinepolis) for its opening day. The sales are good outside national chains as well, with a non-national chain like Rajhans Cinemas selling around 1,200 tickets. Ticket booking portal, BookMyShow, is reporting over 50K sales so far, which includes sales not just on opening day but overall weekend and across all chains.
In all, the Sunny Deol led war film featuring an ensemble cast of Varun Dhawan, Diljit Dosanjh and Ahan Shetty, has nearly Rs. 1.50 crore nett in sales for its opening day.
While these are obviously good numbers, the expectations were for better, and the initial rush did appear to be better than what it eventually ended up with. The way sales started in the morning, it seemed like it would be aiming for 200-250K final sales at national chains, but now 150-175K seems more probable. Speaking in terms of overall advance, it will likely be clocking around Rs. 10-12 crore nett for the first day.
In comparison, Gadar 2 had 275K tickets sold at the national chains and Rs. 15 crore nett overall advance for the first day. While the drop off is high in the number of tickets, the difference will be lesser in money due to Border 2 having “blockbuster ticket pricing” while Gadar 2 released with normal prices. Gadar 2 opened to Rs. 39 crore nett first day, while being capacity-constrained due to a clash with OMG 2, which limited walkups at various centres. Border 2 is also in advantage there as it won’t have any capacity limitations and will have scope for better walkups.
From the sales, the target for the first day at this point is around Rs. 35 crore nett. That said, there is room for upside. Border 2 is the kind of film that typically gathers momentum closer to release, so it can do better than this. Furthermore, the focus will be on getting the reception right and building on the start. There is a big national holiday for Republic Day on Monday, which should turn up in a big way for this film, having patriotic themes. The last year was a mixed bag for the Hindi film industry, but it ended on a strong note with the record-breaking run of Dhurandhar. With Border 2, 2026 looks set to carry that momentum forward, with several more major releases lined up across the year.
