It has happened.
Yet another weekend and there is a film which is bringing in audiences to the theatres in hordes. The trend started with Gangubai Kathiawadi, followed by The Kashmir Files and later Bachchan Pandey. The good news is that the footfalls have been there on a consistent basis.
All floodgates have opened, though, with RRR, which has taken the biggest start of 2022 when it comes to Hindi releases. While the first two days have brought in Rs 43.82 crore, the trend so far indicates that it could well go over Rs 70 crore by the close of weekend. Saturday's collection was Rs 23.75 crore and over Rs 26 crore in box office earnings is expected today (Sunday).
Of course, the fact that ticket prices have been increased at certain centres has also amped up collections. The risk is always both ways since it can act as a deterrent as well. However, that hasn’t been the case for the S.S. Rajamouli film - his brand ensured that audiences were flocking to theatres from Day 1 itself, and from there on word of mouth has helped.
Of course, the Baahubali franchise is an altogether different league since that has a far greater dramatic and emotional appeal. However, that’s compensated by the set piece action sequences that dominate RRR from start to the finish, making it a paisa vasool entertainer for the audiences, both at the single screens as well as multiplexes.
Last year when Sooryavanshi arrived in theatres over the Diwali weekend, it took a start of Rs 26.29 crore and then enjoyed a weekend of Rs 77.08 crore. RRR (Hindi), of course, is playing on a regular weekend - Day 1 box office earnings totalled Rs 20.07 crore, and the weekend is likely to fall short of Sooryavanshi's total first-weekend earnings.
Having said that, the film will likely do better than Saaho (Hindi) in overall earnings. The Prabhas starrer had a better opening day of Rs 24.40 crore and the weekend too was higher at Rs 79.08 crore. However, the reports there were not as positive and the lifetime was Rs 142.95 crore. In case of RRR (Hindi), audience word of mouth is better so by the close of first week itself, it should be able to catch up well, and then eventually beat the lifetime of the Prabhas starrer.
RRR (Hindi) is yet another success story in the making and one just hopes that the next set of releases, Attack, KGF: Chapter 2, Jersey and Beast, take the winning run forward.
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