Alia Bhatt scores a century with Gangubai Kathiawadi

Jhund NFT. The film started slow, earning just over Rs 11 crore in the first week.

Alia Bhatt starrer Gangubai Kathiawadi is the first 100 Crore Club film of 2022. The film started well, gained excellent momentum in days to follow, and now after two weeks in theatres has comfortably scored a century. Standing at Rs 105 crore as of Friday, the film has maintained a fantastic pace right since its release and has clearly been loved by a wide segment of audience.

What’s heartening is that the film hasn’t done well just in pockets. Be it A, B and C centres or single screens and multiplexes, the Sanjay Leela Bhansali directed film has managed audiences all over. Of course, the film had its limitations as well in terms of the target audience that it had, considering the theme of prostitution. Hence, one couldn’t be looking at an all around family entertainer here. Still, amongst the elite as well as gentry, the film has managed to gather audience appreciation and that’s allowing it to now aim for a lifetime in the vicinity of Rs 100 crore.

As for Jhund, it has done the kind of business in its first week which should come in the opening weekend itself. The film started low at Rs 1.50 crore and while the growth over the opening weekend wasn’t great, what went in its favour over the course of its run is the stability that was seen during he weekdays. The collections stayed over the 1 crore mark right through and as a result, Rs 1.10 crore came on Thursday as well.

So far, the Amitabh Bachchan starrer has collected Rs 11.30 crore and though at one point in time it had seemed that it could well fold up in Rs 12-15 crore range, the stable run indicates that it may well have a shot at the Rs 20 crore mark. If the at indeed turns out to be the case for would be some sort of lifetime at least for the film, especially if one considers the opening day which was sub-optimal. The film is doing this business also on the strength of Maharashtra and this is where it will continue to bring in some audience.

As for Radhe Shyam, it’s the biggest film of 2022 so far, especially since Prabhas is leading from the front. Somehow the film couldn’t gain the kind of momentum en route release that would have made it super hot across the country. Even for its Telugu version it didn’t quite gather the kind of hype that it would warranted considering the presence of Prabhas. However in Hindi, it was even low with the film just not reaching out to the audiences from the buzz perspective.

With Pooja Hegde in the lead, the film has found a good release for itself but one can’t expect a double digit start for it, something that was the minimum expectation from it. That can already be seen from the morning and afternoon footfalls for the film. From here, it would be aiming to attract family audiences in the evening and night shows, though by and large it would be the word of mouth that would decide where exactly does the weekend land up,

The Kashmir Files has also released and the film is already gathering fantastic reviews from all quarters. Just like The Tashkent Files, director Vivek Agnihotri would be hoping that critical acclaim would translate into audience response as well and with every passing day, the film would find itself in the profit zone soon.