In a big respite for the Hindi movie industry, Shah Rukh Khan starrer Pathaan has set a new record by garnering the biggest opening day collections beating K.G.F: Chapter 2 at the Indian box office.

Trade analysts estimate that the Hindi version of the movie raked in ₹55 crore while the Tamil and Telugu versions took in an additional ₹2 crore for a total of ₹57 crore in terms of net collections at the Indian box office. It is expected that the movie will surpass the ₹100 crore mark in the Indian box office day collections in just the first two days

Pathaan has been released on over 5,000 screens in the country totalling 8,000 screens worldwide. Huge demand for tickets led cinemas to add early morning shows with some starting as early as 6 am and even midnight shows.

The film’s release also marked the reopening of several single-screen cinemas in the country. Its worldwide gross box office collections for the first day are estimated at ₹106 crore, setting a new record, as per analysts

Raking in

Trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted that 2023 has started with a bang for the Hindi movie industry.

Despite Pathaan opening in mid-week and a non-holiday Wednesday, it has embarked on a historic start with biggest Day 1 collections, he stated while adding, “#PathaanMania grips the nation. Wednesday Rs 55 crore. India biz. Hindi version. Tamil + Telugu : Rs 2 crore (sic).”

Comparatively, K.G.F: Chapter 2 opened to about ₹53.95 crore on opening day.

Other top grossers at the Indian box office include War, released in 2019 (₹51.60 crore), and Thugs of Hindostan (₹50.75 crore), as per analysts.

King Khan’s comeback film

Karan Taurani, Senior Vice-President, Elara Capital told businessline, “I think Pathaan has done well because it is fresh content and not a remake of any Southern or English film. It is SRK’s comeback film after four years and he has a huge fan following. This is large-scale content backed by star power after a long gap which led to this kind of a huge opening day collections.”

He added that the movie is also an action-thriller, a genre that has done well in the last year besides sci-fi flicks.

“It is good news for the industry because Hindi content had, over the past year, seen a huge setback. This will be a huge respite for the industry and this needs to happen on a more consistent basis. We believe we will see a change in the kind of content offered and it will have a big impact in terms of pulling audiences to the big screen. We believe the Hindi box office will see a recovery back to the pre-pandemic levels during this calendar year,” Taurani added.

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