Summer 2023 was the best season of Bollywood ever, what with back-to-back hits, superhits and blockbusters. If Shah Rukh Khan's Jawan and Sunny Deol's Gadar 2 were mega blockbuster, a small film like The Kerala Story emerged super successful too. Then there were 100 Crore Club successes like OMG 2, Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, Dream Girl 2 and Fukrey 2, and romantic affairs like Zara Hatke Zara Bachke and SatyaPrem Ki Katha brought in good bucks as well.
Unfortunately, though, several films that have released since have turned out to be flops and disasters with the only silver lining being 12th Fail. Made on a shoestring budget, this film directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra is set to go past the Rs 30 crore mark today and eventually hit Rs 40 crore in lifetime earnings - to become a commercial hit.
What everyone is waiting for now, is a mega money-spinner to regain the momentum lost in October 2023. And given the hype around it, Diwali release Tiger 3 could turn out to be that 300/400/500 Crore Club entrant that Bollywood and theatre owners are hoping for.
Unconventional opening day
Salman Khan will return as the eponymous spy in Tiger 3, which is part of the expanding YRF Spyverse that also includes War and Pathaan. The film is the solo Diwali 2023 release - set to open in theatres tomorrow, a Sunday. And with no competition whatsoever from past or present releases, the stage is wide open for the Aditya Chopra production to make a huge impression.
Of course, this film would have been expected to take a start of Rs 50 crore if it were arriving on a regular Friday. However, it couldn't release on Friday since it was Dhanteras and people are busy with festivities. Say, it had released on Dhanteras Friday, then even if collections grew on Saturday, they would likely have dipped again on Sunday - Diwali day; resulting in a rather uneven run.
As a result, the makers have taken a bold step to release this Maneesh Dharma directed action thriller on Sunday instead, and this is indeed brave. On the day of Diwali, the early morning shows can't be expected to see a huge opening, especially at the multiplexes, and then evening and night shows go down as well. Hence, the best bet that the film has is for the shows between 11 AM and 4 PM.
However, the makers are believing that this would still be good enough to give the film a kick-start, and then from Monday onwards the collections will go on an upswing. In fact, expectations are that Monday especially will go on an overdrive and at least Rs 60 crore more would come in. Prior to that, though, the film needs to bring in at least good moolah tomorrow and somewhere around Rs 40 crore seems on the cards. This means that the first two day are targeting collections of Rs 100 crore and that would set the stage for the film to elevate from there on.
All said and done, Bollywood definitely needs a biggie in November since October had gone rather dry with not even a single film managing even Rs 50 crore. December will see releases like Animal, Sam Bahadur and then of course the big one, Dunki. It would be nice to have a huge precursor to that as well in the form of Tiger 3 and one is expecting Salman Khan to deliver the goods.
Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources
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