‘Airlift’ has managed to score a mighty Week One of around INR 835 million at the box office. Now this is a terrific start indeed for the film which was being seen as a niche affair en route release. In fact, even on its release, though critical acclaim was coming from all quarters and audience word of mouth was stupendous as well, it was still believed that the film would primarily manage to cater to multiplexes in big cities. However, everything changed when the film saw thunderous business coming its way on Sunday, and then the Republic Day. With massive moolah being earned on both these days, the film was on steady path.
With this, the film has now earned the status of Akshay Kumar’s biggest Week One ever, hence going well past ‘Rowdy Rathore’ [INR 790 million]. In fact the film is the fifth highest Week One scorer in last six months, ever since the release of Bajrangi Bhaijaan in July 2015. Here is the list:
‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ – INR 1.8462 billion
‘Prem Ratan Dhan Payo’ – INR 1.7282 billion
‘Dilwale’ – INR 1.0265 billion
‘Bajirao Mastani’ – INR 861.5 billion
‘Airlift’ – INR 835 million
Point to be noted is that for every film apart from ‘Airlift’, the budget is at least INR 1 billion (without including the fee of the lead actors). However, ‘Airlift’ has been made at a modest budget of around INR 300 million (without including Akshay Kumar’s fee). That makes the opening of ‘Airlift’ look far bigger in all dimensions with an extraordinary ROI [Return on Invesiment].
From being a niche affair, the Raja Menon directed film has now gained the status of ‘family affair’, which means there are good numbers on the cards for the second weekend as well. There are at least 70%-80% shows retained from Week 1 which demonstrates good confidence that exhibitors continue to have in the film. The film is set to score INR 1 billion by Sunday and would comfortably go past Akshay Kumar’s ‘Housefull 2’ [INR 1.06 billion] and ‘Holiday’ [INR 1.13 billion] before the end of second week.
Note: All collections as per production and distributor source.
