Box office collections: Vicky Kaushal and Sara Ali Khan spring a pleasant surprise with Zara Hatke Zara Bachke, film takes a successful start

Vicky Kaushal and Sara Ali Khan in Zara Hatke Zara Bachke, directed by Laxman Utekar and produced by Dinesh Vijan. (Screen grab from trailer)

Surprises never cease in Bollywood. Just when it seemed that after the underperformance of Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ka Jaan, the industry will have to wait for a couple of months before Adipurush to arrive and revive the box office, there has been an unprecedented flurry of successes, none of which was expected to work at the scale it eventually did.

First, there was The Kerala Story that entered the 200 Crore Club. Then there was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 that comfortably went past the Rs 50 crore mark. There was Fast X next, which cruised into the 100 Crore Club (more about that later) and now it’s the turn of Zara Hatke Zara Bachke which, by the look of things, could be the next Rs 50 crore earner.

How has that even become possible? Well, the film turned out to be the audience choice as it promised entertainment that could be enjoyed by families. Producer Dinesh Vijan decided to have a compact two-week promotional campaign for the film, and Vicky Kaushal and Sara Ali Khan did interviews and made several appearances to promote it rather well. There was a chatter around the film and though not many in the trade were still taking it seriously, distributors and exhibitors did, which resulted in the Laxman Utekar directed affair getting a good release.

The results were there to be seen, as some sort of advance booking did kickstart for the film and then there was this Buy-One-Get-One offer which further aided in ticket sales. Of course, none of this helps if a movie by itself is not generating enough excitement among the audience and since in this case there was good enough buzz, the promotional offer did help. Result? A first day opening number of Rs 5.49 crore, which is actually quite good and would have been impressive even pre-pandemic.

What’s needed from here is the momentum to just continue right into the weekend, and if the reports so far are any indication, that should happen as well with more than Rs 20 crore expected by close of Sunday. Early reports for Saturday are already indicating a jump of over 25 percent and that would push the numbers in a big way. Once word of mouth starts spreading, Sunday could be even aiming for a staggering double-digit score.

Meanwhile, older releases have performed quite well too, what with Fast X scoring a century and still adding on to it. The film achieved the feat in two weeks flat, though it was expectedly aided by a super strong opening weekend and then the extended first week that stood at Rs 81 crore. The second week added Rs 20 crore more and that has pushed the total past the Rs 100-crore mark. Indian ticket sales for the Vin Diesel-led ensemble affair currently stands at Rs 102 crore.

As for The Kerala Story, the Adah Sharma starrer went on to have a good fourth week as well when even the weekday numbers never went below the Rs 1.50 crore mark. That resulted in Rs 231.72 crore being collected by the close of week. By comparison, The Kashmir Files had netted Rs 253 crore in its final run. The Vipul Shah film could have made a dash for it but then with Zara Hatke Zara Bachke now doing quite well, The Kerala Story is expected to slow down. It will still cross Rs 240 crore comfortably and possibly reach a total of around Rs 245 crore.