Releasing this week is Dhurandhar, a big budget espionage action thriller starring Ranveer Singh in the lead role. There are some expectations from the film, mainly coming from the director’s highly successful film and the high cost, which is reflected in the scale of the film. Unfortunately, those expectations don’t seem to be translating into actual momentum at the box office.
The advance amount for the film is low, around Rs. Net sales of Rs 5 crore so far on the first day. The final number is around Rs. Can reach. 6 crores nett. Within these figures, sales are heavily skewed towards the national chains, with the film leading the way with 115K tickets sold. There too, it is PVRINOX which is driving the sales, Cinepolis is at a lower than usual ratio. Some are block bookings; They might be throwing the proportions a little out of whack. Progressively, the film looks at the early days in lower-middle adolescence. With favorable reception, it may increase a little more in the evening.
Ideally, the film’s sales should have been double what they are now, but given the genre and genre of the film, this was always going to be difficult. Some of Bollywood’s highest-grossing films are spy films like ‘Pathan’ and ‘Tiger’, but they are full of commercial elements, star-driven and packed with music and action similar to masala entertainers. Unlike them, this film is more towards realism, which has a very limited audience. Marketing hasn’t helped either; The promo emphasizes style rather than narrative clarity. From what is seen, the film seems to revolve around gang war and government action in Pakistan. But how any of this connects to India is not clearly explained, further limiting its appeal.
The film was recently divided into two parts. With this decision the burden on the budget has reduced significantly. Originally one rupee. what was it? A single film worth Rs 400-450 crore has now been split into two films, making the cost much more manageable. 225-250 crores each. This also improves recovery, as the second part provides additional monetization through non-theatrical rights and ultimately the box office. As a single film, these developments could have been fatal as recovery was almost impossible, but now it has a chance if it can get the right reception. That said, it’s crazy that there was enough filmed material to split the film not just into two movies of 120 minutes or more each, but into two movies of over 200 minutes each.
Also read: Tere Ishq Mein box office collection: Dhanush, Kriti Sanon’s film has another strong day on Wednesday, Rs. 72 crores in 6 days
