Box office : Pushpa (Hindi) surpasses 'Uri - The Surgical Strike' and 'Baahubali: The Beginning' on key metric

'Pushpa' (Hindi) has entered the 100 Crore Club. (Image: Goldmines/Screen grab)

'Pushpa' (Hindi) has crossed Rs 100 crore in earnings at the box office. And in the process, it has multiplied its opening day earnings of Rs 3.33 crore by 30 times - setting a record that will be hard to beat.

Industry insiders see opening day earnings an early indicator of the film's total earnings at the box office. To be sure, some films defy expectations to do exceptionally well after a slow start.

'Pushpa' (Hindi), however, is the first film in the 100 Crore Club to have grown 30x since opening day. This has never happened before, not since Aamir Khan's 'Ghajini' became the first film in the 100 Crore Club in 2008.

So, are the times of opening weekends deciding the eventual fortunes of the film over? It's hard to say because the pandemic has thrown everything - including tried and tested metrics - out of whack.

Having said that, there is no discounting the fact that the rise of 'Pushpa' (Hindi) has been phenomenal. It has done even better on this metric than 'Baahubali: The Beginning', which had a multiplier factor of 22.72 - it had a relatively better start at Rs 5.15 crore and then went on to have a lifetime of Rs 117 crore.

There are only four films in history where lifetime collections are 20 times or more of the opening day number: 'Pushpa' and 'Baahubali' from the South, and 'Chhichhore' and 'Uri - The Surgical Strike' from Bollywood. 'Chhichhore' started decently, with Rs 7.32 crore but such was the word of mouth that the Sushant Singh Rajput-starrer went past the Rs 150 crore mark and in the process multiplied the opening day earnings 20.91 times.

Similarly, 'Uri - The Surgical Strike' had a very good Day 1, with earnings of Rs8.2 crore. But then the craze around the Vicky Kaushal-starrer was so phenomenal that it continued to run for a really long time and scored a huge double century with the lifetime closing at Rs 244.2 crore. The multiplier factor was an amazing 29.78, only marginally lower than 'Pushpa' (30.03x).

Ditto for 'Tanhaji - The Unsung Warrior', which is also the highest grossing film in the Top-10 list of the biggest 'multiplier' movies - with Rs 280 crore in its lifetime collections. The fact that the multiplier factor is just under 20 (18.54) is because it started well at Rs 15.1 crore, hence also being the only film with a double digit opening that went on to have such a huge multiplying factor.

The others in the list are all mid-budget films that went on to find massive popularity post their release. Each of these films did take a good enough start for their budget but then ended up exceeding expectations when it came to their lifetime run, be it Rajkummar Rao-Shraddha Kapoor's 'Stree', Ayushmann Khurranna's 'Badhaai Ho', Madhavan and Kangana Ranaut's 'Tanu Weds Manu Returns', Kartik Aaryan, Sunny Singh and Nushrat Bharucha's 'Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety' or Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal's 'Raazi'.

As for 'Pushpa' (Hindi), the film is still running and there may be more to celebrate. One now waits to see how its sequel 'Pushpa: The Rule' opens - it is expected to release in 2023. After the success of 'Baahubali: The Beginning' (Rs 5.15 crore on opening day), 'Baahubali: The Conclusion' [Hindi] had collected a massive Rs 41 crore on opening day. It did set the record for the highest ever lifetime collections for a film that released in Hindi as it gathered Rs 511 crore. The multiplier factor was 12.46, though, due to its blockbuster opening.

Will 'Pushpa: The Rule' follow the same trajectory or do even better? We'll find out next year.