DUNKI WILL FAIL TO CROSS THE RS. 225 CRORE MARK; SALAAR MIGHT CROSS THE RS. 150 CRORE MARK
The grand Christmas releases, Dunki and Salaar, haven’t performed as per the expectations. It was released during the long holiday period. Dunki arrived in cinemas on Thursday, December 21. It had the advantage of a five-day extended weekend in week 1 and a four-day extended weekend in week 2 since both December 25 and January 1 fell on Monday. But due to limited hype, it opened at Rs. 28 crores. Word of mouth was not strong and it managed to collect Rs. 149 crores in Week 1.
The second week started on an okay note, as it collected Rs. 6.50 crores. The collections jumped to Rs. 8.50 crores on Saturday and it went to double digits on Sunday (Rs. 10.75 crores). On New Year’s day, the collections were in the same range as Saturday’s earnings – Rs. 8.25 crores. From Tuesday, it saw a drop as it earned Rs. 3.75 crores. The two-week collections stand will stand at around Rs. 193-194 crores. It’ll cross the Rs. 200 crores mark by Saturday.
Last Thursday, Dunki was expected to do slightly better and hopefully cross the collections of The Kerala Story (Rs. 220.84 crores). Looking at the performance in Week 2, it’ll collect around Rs. 215-217 crores in its lifetime. It might barely reach Rs. 220 crores. It’ll face competition from Merry Christmas, which releases on January 12 and it also appeals to the multiplex audience like Dunki.
Salaar, meanwhile, collected Rs. 93.25 crores in Week 1. It had decent collections in its four-day second weekend of Rs. 30.25 crores. The collections of Dunki and Salaar were the same on the second Tuesday – Rs. 3.75 crores. In Week 3, it might earn more than Dunki. Also, mass centres will play the Prabhas-starrer until the release of Fighter on January 25.
In last week’s Bollywood Talk, we remarked that Salaar’s target should be to cross Adipurush’s lifetime collections, that is, Rs. 127.11 crores. That happened on second Tuesday. Now, it has a shot in crossing the Rs. 150 crores mark. The collections are great in a way but much was expected from it, as the last film of Prashanth Neel, KGF – Chapter 2, earned more than Rs. 400 crores. Also, the performance of the Telugu version hasn’t been encouraging and the Hindi version is holding best.