Dhurandhar: The Revenge had another superb day of pre-sales at the Indian box office despite a major cricket match. The film has sold around 200,000 tickets for its paid previews, worth Rs. 9 crore nett approx. Of this, 141,000 tickets have been sold at the two national chains, PVRINOX and Cinepolis, accounting for nearly 80 per cent of the total revenue.
With this, the Ranveer Singh starrer now holds the record for the highest paid previews for a Bollywood film, surpassing the Rs. 8.75 crore nett of Stree 2. Dhurandhar: The Revenge has achieved this record without playing a single show, with just two days of pre-sales and still ten days to go for release. The focus now shifts to the Indian record, currently held by They Call Him OG, which netted Rs. 26 crore approx for its previews.
A bit of trivia here: Every Bollywood film that has set the paid preview record since Ghajini in 2008 has gone on to become the industry’s highest grosser at the time of its release, with the latest being Stree 2, which overtook Jawan (Hindi). Dhurandhar: The Revenge is widely expected to be a record grosser, beating its predecessor, and now it has the bellwether record to go with it.
From here on, the film will keep chugging along. The daily pace of sales may drop a bit and then stabilise. There are still ten days to go, by the end of which, the film will likely be nearing the Rs. 20 crore nett, possibly more. It has a huge capacity of over Rs. 55 crore nett, which should rise to over Rs. 65 crore eventually. At that level, it can certainly score over Rs. 30 crore nett. The Eid holiday seems to be falling on 21st March in India now, so the opening day is not a national holiday anymore. There is a holiday for Ugadi and Gudi Padava in two big markets of Mumbai and South India, but North India will be a working day. That may hurt the occupancies for the second show, which will start as late as 9:30-10 PM in most places. If the next day was a holiday, even Rs. 40 crore would have been on the menu. Though you never know with the craze the film has, it could still get there.
The advances for the rest of the weekend are expected to open on Wednesday, though it is seen that cinemas often jump the gun, which could happen here as well. The film is expected to break all previous pre-sales records and set new benchmarks.
