Box office collections: Drishyam 2 brings back ‘achche din’ for Bollywood

A still from Drishyam 2.

It is finally ‘achche din’ again for Bollywood, going by the opening day collections of Drishyam 2.

The reasons are manifold: The film is neither an event release like Brahmastra nor a holiday release like Ram Setu. It doesn’t have a chartbuster song like ‘Hare Krishna Hare Ram’, as was the case with Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2. Nor is it a masala big-screen extravaganza like KGF: Chapter 2 or RRR. It’s not even a Hollywood superhero film (Marvel films have continued to do well in India this year). Still, it has opened big, and how.

The film has taken a start of Rs 15.38 crore, and that’s the second best of the year for a Bollywood film after Brahmastra. In fact, the numbers are such that they would have been considered to be quite good even pre-pandemic and here we are talking about the film releasing in the times when audiences are being quite choosy about what to watch on the big screen.

Also read: Drishyam 2's Shriya Saran: ‘It’s great that actors don’t get written off for being married or becoming parents'

The film has in fact also broken the myth that remakes don’t work any more in theatres. In fact, any such kind of generalisation doesn’t help. You can neither say that all remakes are sure-shot recipes for success, and nor can it be said that since the originals are available on OTT, there would be no takers for the Hindi version. It’s all about whether the right kind of curiosity has been generated for a film during promotion and marketing, and whether the release is right. That’s what has actually gone in favour of Drishyam 2.

The film which hasn’t quite won big, though, is Uunchai. The strategy to give the film a sparse release was based on the assumption that the word of mouth would be so strong that there would be huge demand for it on a day-by-day basis. Well, yes, the collections did jump in the first weekend but then the weekdays didn’t quite stay consistently over the Friday numbers (Rs 1.81 crore). The footfalls were all on the same level as Friday, but then the ticket rates are comparatively lower during the weekdays.

For the film to be a clear hit, it needed the second Friday to be quite close to the first Friday. In fact, with the screen count increased, the numbers could have been even better. However, there were dips - albeit quite minor - during the weekdays. As a result, when Rs 1.31 crore came on the second Friday, it wasn’t entirely surprising.

The Sooraj Barjatya film has reached Rs 18.33 crore. The arrival of Drishyam 2 and its big opening so far indicate that there would be drop in collections for Uunchai, an Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher and Boman Irani starrer.

Meanwhile, Kantara (Hindi) has crossed the Rs 80 crore milestone and earned a bonafide blockbuster tag for itself in the dubbed version as well. The Rishab Shetty film sustained well right through the weekdays of Week 5 and is still finding dedicated shows for itself in the sixth week.

One film which would be aiming for entry into the 100 Crore Club in quick time is Bhediya. The Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon starrer has everything going for it currently and most importantly the promo has done the trick, with children in particular taking a fancy to it. The expectation is that this film will make more than Rs 15 crore on opening day - especially if advance booking heats up in the coming days.

Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources