Dhurandhar: The Revenge opened advance bookings for its paid previews in India today at 11 AM. By 8 PM, just nine hours into sales, the film had already sold over one lakh tickets. The national chains, PVRINOX and Cinepolis, have contributed around 75,000 tickets so far. In terms of revenue, the film is already nearing the Rs. 5 crore nett mark, and by the time you are reading this, it will likely have crossed it.
For context, Stree 2 holds the record for the highest paid previews for a Bollywood film at Rs. 8.75 crore nett. At the current pace, Dhurandhar: The Revenge could surpass that figure as early as tomorrow morning, within the first 24 hours of ticket sales, more than ten days before the release. The Ranveer Singh starrer was widely expected to take this record, but maybe no one fathomed it to be in this manner.
The film has already built a huge capacity for the day. Multiplexes with two to four screens are playing the film exclusively for the last two shows of the day. Larger multiplexes with six to ten screens are leaving only one or two screens for other titles. On release, even those could shift to Dhurandhar. So far, nearly 6000 shows are on sale; this number is likely to exceed 8000 and could approach 10,000. The capacity for the day is already around Rs. 45 crore nett, and the final number could grow to Rs. 60-70 crore nett. This is not far from what some of the big films get on a normal full day.
At this level, the film could cross the Rs. 30 crore nett mark for just the previews, maybe even Rs. 40 crore nett. Since the film has an extremely long run time of nearly 4 hours, one engagement will last around 4:30-5 hours. As a result, the second show will begin close to 10 PM and later. Some places may find it tough to get those full occupancies that late, although metros will be fine, and the first show will practically be full. The pre-sales are already shaping up for that as the film will be clearing the Rs. 10 crore nett mark tomorrow, and then there are ten more days to go.
