Kartik Aaryan starrer Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 has entered the 100 Crore Club on its ninth day (Saturday) at the box office. After a fantastic first week of Rs 92.05 crore, it went on to have a wonderful second Friday as well of Rs 6.52 crore which took its overall collections to Rs 98.57 crore. It missed scoring a century in eight days by a mere Rs 1.43 crore. However, that gap was covered on Saturday morning itself and as a result the collections have gone past the Rs 100 crore mark. With this, the film has turned out to be yet another box office earner this season.
It it goes into overdrive tomorrow, the Anees Bazmee-directed horror-comedy could see a big second weekend collection of Rs 27-30 crores. That should come as a relief to theatre owners and film distributors as the other new releases, Anek and Tom Gun: Maverick, were slow to kick off.
It was a rather dry season for new Hindi releases this year. Barring The Kashmir Files and Gangubai Kathiawadi, nothing had actually done well. In fact, if not for these two films and dubbed versions of KGF: Chapter 2 and RRR, the exhibition and distribution circle would have been in doldrums. However, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 has infused fresh hope.
The film may surpass lifetime earnings of Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety (Rs 109 crore), Kartik Aaryan's biggest grosser so far, by the end of Saturday itself. Then the next major record it is likely to break is Anees Bazmee's Ready, which had earnings of Rs 120 crore over its entire theatre run. That should be history by end of Sunday. As for Kiara Advani, she has had big releases like Kabir Singh and Good Newwz to her name but M.S. Dhoni - The Untold Story's lifetime record would be gone soon.
By the look of things, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 will comfortably go past the Rs 150 crore milestone and it has to be seen that how much ahead of that does it go before the close of its run.
Unfortunately, things aren't as rosy for the new releases of the week. Anek saw the combination of director Anubhav Sinha and leading man Ayushmann Khurrana return after Article 15. That film was a hit at the box office with lifetime numbers of Rs 65.45 crore, after it started at Rs 5.02 crore. However, Anek had a much lower beginning of Rs 2.11 crore, despite boasting of an exciting promo and good mounting. Catering to intelligentsia, the film has primarily found audience amongst elite at major multiplexes of the urban centres.
On the other hand Top Gun: Maverick couldn't do any wonders either with collections in a similar range of Rs 2 crore. Not that it was expected to do the kind of business that a Marvel film does in India, but still given the action genre and the fact that Tom Cruise is leading the show, at least Rs 4-5 crore seemed to be on the cards. However, it didn't turn out to be the case and the start was rather dull. Considering the fact that the reports of the film are good and it indeed makes for a big screen outing, there are expectations of some growth over the weekend.
Overall, the month of May is closing on a reasonably satisfactory note. All eyes are now on June to turn further special with biggies like Prithviraj, Major, Vikram and JugJugg Jeeyo arriving at theatres.
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