Avengers: Endgame sees record start in India; Kalank flops, Badla completes 50 days

Avengers: Endgame

History has been created at the Indian box office, what with Avengers: Endgame taking an unheard of, unprecedented and unbelievable start. The film was always expected to open quite well, considering the fact that sustained hype had been created around it for almost a year already.

Avengers: Infinity War had opened at Rs 31.30 crore and then went on to collect Rs 226 crore in India, hence emerging as a blockbuster. Hence it was pretty much on the cards that Avengers: Endgame would start in excess of Rs 40 crore at the least.

However, the actual numbers have turned out to be much bigger, what with Rs 53.10 crore coming in. This is simply stunning.

As a matter of fact there are number of records that have been created by the Hollywood superhero biggie on the very first day. To begin with, this is now the biggest opening that a film has taken with predominantly English and Hindi releases. Before this, Thugs of Hindostan boasted of the record for the biggest opening day when it made Rs 52.25 crore. Out of this, there was contribution of Rs 1.50 crore from the Tamil and Telugu version. However, Avengers: Endgame had gone ahead of this with some contribution coming from regional languages as well.

What makes this record more remarkable is the fact that the film has been released on just 2,845 screens, which is less than 60 percent of the screen count of Thugs of Hindostan (3,000 screens). Moreover, the Aamir Khan biggie with Yash Raj Films backing it up was a mega festival release, considering it was Diwali. However, Avengers: Endgame has released on a regular working day.

This makes it the biggest film ever on a non-holiday release as Baahubali 2 had collected Rs 41 crore on its regular Friday release and that too was a blockbuster opening. Eventually, the film had managed a weekend of Rs 128 crore. While that number should be a cakewalk for Avengers: Endgame, it is pretty much on the cards that Rs 150 crore would be very comfortably crossed by Sunday night. In fact one waits to see if either Saturday or Sunday actually manages to breach the Rs 60 crore milestone as well and if that happens, it would be a more significant milestone.

As for Kalank, it too was expected to be huge but unfortunately that hasn't  happened for the biggie. The film currently stands around Rs 78 crore after 10 days (considering its mid-week release) and would not go much beyond the Rs 80 crore total eventually. The film took a huge opening of Rs 21.60 crore but couldn't quite sustain from the second say onwards. Overseas, the film has done much better though and is a success.

On the other hand The Tashkent Files is growing from strength to strength. It had taken an expected start of Rs 0.40 crore on its opening day but then had kept stable to bring in Rs 3.50 crore in the first week. What has ensured that the film would now be a theatrical commercial success as well are the second week numbers that actually went up to Rs 4.22 crore. Moreover, the film is sustaining in the third week as well, what with the release too expanded across 450 screens. With collections going past the 8 crores mark, it should comfortably cross 10 crores soon.

The film is facing huge competition from Avengers: Endgame but considering the fact that it has been set now for two weeks, there is set audience base which is appreciating the investigative thriller. Small films like these usually manage to hang on for a while in theaters once the word of mouth is conducive.

Another film which is still finding some screens going for it, Badla, has now completed 50 days at the box office. It has seen a huge turnaround if one looks at the opening day of Rs 5.04 crore as the collections so far are around 18 times this number, what with the lifetime coming close to Rs 90 crore.

Amitabh Bachchan's Piku had started a bit bigger at Rs 5.30 crore and closed at Rs 80 crore. In that aspect, Badla, directed by Sujoy Ghosh, is much bigger as the budget is lesser and the ROI is far bigger.