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‘Aiye, Aiye, Yo! Lungi Dance’ has worked for Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and Rohit Shetty. Chennai Express , the masala flick, has already gathered speed at the box office.
If the paid preview collections of the movie are an indicator, the film could end up earning Rs 33-34 crore on the first day, according to initial industry estimates. Last year’s Eid weekend blockbuster, Salman Khan’s Ek Tha Tiger, from the Yash Raj stable, had garnered about Rs 33 crore on the first day.
On Thursday, at the end of the paid preview shows, the movie fetched Rs 6.7 crore at the domestic box office. Paid previews are limited screenings of big-ticket films a day before the official, widespread release.
As far as overseas collections are concerned, the paid previews saw good numbers in the Gulf, the UK, Singapore and New Zealand.
Trade analysts say that while the movie is expected to get good viewership over the long weekend, how it fares beyond that remains to be seen.
The movie was released across 3,500 screens in the country on Friday. To tap into SRK’s huge fan following in foreign countries, the distributors released the film across 800 screens in overseas markets. The movie has been subtitled in about 10 languages, including English, French, Spanish, Arabic, German, Hebrew, Dutch, Turkish and Malay.
The Disney-UTV and Red Chillies Entertainment film has been directed by Rohit Shetty.
“The box office journey started with the highest-ever collections on paid previews and we are confident that Chennai Express will continue to create a new benchmark at the box office each passing day,” said Gaurav Verma, Director, India Theatrical Distribution, Disney UTV.
According to Gautam Dutta, COO, PVR Cinemas, “The movie has seen 93-95 per cent occupancy on Day 1 at PVR Cinemas alone. Combining Cinemax and PVR screens we believe we have garnered nearly four lakh admits on Friday.”
The distributors have already fetched a premium by selling the satellite rights, reportedly for Rs 40 crore, to Zee Entertainment Enterprises.
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