Progress for Dhurandhar: The Revenge launched in India about two hours ago, and the response has been excellent since the beginning. The Ranveer Singh starrer has already sold over 30,000 tickets, priced at Rs. 1.25 crore nett. Of this, 20,000 are from PVRINOX. For the record, this is twelve days before the release, when generally Bollywood films open three to five days before the release.
Currently, bookings are open only for paid preview shows on March 18, and that too is limited to national multiplex chains like PVRINOX, Cinepolis and MovieMax. A few more theaters have started preparations and others are expected to join in as the day progresses. The strategy appears to be to maximize preview shows at premium prices before opening up the remaining inventory. The rest will be difficult to hold on to for long, and one can expect progress to begin to pick up by the end of the day for the rest of the opening weekend.
The display planned for the preview day is amazing. In multiplexes with two to four screens, the film is running exclusively for the last two shows of the day. Large multiplexes with six to ten screens have also opened up most of their screens to films, leaving only one or two screens for competing titles. As the release approaches, the remaining screens may also shift to Dhurandhar.
This will create greater capacity for preview. Since the film is of extremely long duration of around 4 hours, a movie will last around 4:30-5 hours. As a result, the second show will start around and after 10 pm. It may be difficult to fill all the seats in some places late in the day, although metros will be fine and the first show will be practically full. Given the scale of the show and the pace of initial sales, the preview alone could fetch over Rs. Can be received. 15-20 crores nett, likely to go even higher. The current record for the biggest preview day is Stree 2, which collected Rs. Its preview show earned Rs 8 crore.
There was a period in the late 2000s and early 2010s when paid previews started becoming a regular feature for Bollywood releases. However, the trend gradually petered out, as previews were often seen as taking away from the opening day’s figures, with industry reporting largely focused on first-day collections. Recently, with the “all-India” fixation of box office reporting, opening day figures are being reported including previews, leading to a revival of this practice.
More updates on pre-sales will come as the day progresses. Stay tuned.
Also read: Exclusive: Dhurandhar 2 advance booking opens on March 7; Jio Studios to introduce Super Blockbuster Plus rate on national chains