The excitement is at its peak as ‘Pathaan’ will release tomorrow, that is, January 25. It’s a foregone conclusion now that it’s all set to take a terrific opening.
‘Pathaan’ stars Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham. Directed by Siddharth Anand, it is produced by Aditya Chopra’s Yash Raj Films (YRF) and is a part of the YRF Spy Universe. This means that it belongs to the same world as Tiger (Salman Khan) from ‘Ek Tha Tiger’ (2012) and ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’ (2017) and Kabir (Hrithik Roshan) from ‘War’ (2019). It’s come to light that Salman reprises his role as Tiger and will have a special appearance. This factor has made the film one of the most awaited ones for a long time. Also, it’s Shah Rukh Khan’s first film in more than four years.
The promotions of ‘Pathaan’ began with the teaser which was dropped on Shah Rukh Khan’s birthday, on November 2, 2022. In December, the first song of the film, “Besharam Rang”, was released. Amusingly, a section of politicians and trolls raised objections that too over Deepika Padukone’s orange swimsuit. They claimed that it insults Hindu sentiments! As expected, people didn’t buy the illogical argument. But since all news channels gave a lot of footage to this controversy, it helped the film in getting free publicity.
As for “Besharam Rang”, it became a chartbuster. The other song, “Jhoome Jo Pathaan” started slow but gradually, also became very big.
After these songs were out, the trailer was launched on January 12. It made it clear that the film is made on a grand scale and is replete with action, grandeur, style and patriotism.
The advance booking of ‘Pathaan’ opened on January 18 and ever since the ticket sales have gone up with each passing day. What’s interesting is that it’s releasing on a non-holiday. Yet, several shows are already full. With January 26 being a National Holiday owing to Republic Day, the evening and night shows have great bookings too.
As for the opening day number, ‘Pathaan’ is sure to collect more than Rs. 40 Crore on the first day. It now remains to be seen how far it can go on the basis of spot bookings and last-minute advance bookings.
‘Baahubali 2’s (2017) Hindi version has the record of being the biggest non-holiday opener at Rs. 40.73 Crore. ‘Pathaan’ is sure to cross the figure and also the day one of ‘Bharat’ (2019), which was Rs. 41.62 Crore.
The next opening day record is of ‘Thugs Of Hindostan’ (2018), which collected Rs. 48.27 Crore and ‘War’ (2019), which earned Rs. 50.61 Crore. ‘Pathaan’ has a strong chance of crossing these figures.
The Hindi version of ‘KGF – Chapter 2’ (2022), meanwhile, had collected Rs. 52.50 Crore on day one while ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (2019) had collected Rs. 53.50 Crore. ‘Avengers: Endgame’ also holds the record of collecting the highest-ever collection in a single day – Rs. 53.75 Crore – on its third day of release. Readers will be shocked to know that ‘Pathaan’ can even go past these almost impossible-to-achieve numbers on its first day. If not on the first day, it can cross these figures on the day two holiday. Of course, this will depend on the content and reports.
If the word of mouth for ‘Pathaan’ is positive, it can earn Rs. 200 Crore by Sunday, that is, in five days. Even if reports are not strong, audiences are sure to throng to cinemas to watch the film as the excitement is too much. Moreover, there has been no major film release since ‘Cirkus’ (2022) last month. As a result, even in a worst-case scenario, ‘Pathaan’ can have lifetime collections of more than Rs. 150 Crore!
The other release of the week is ‘Gandhi Godse – Ek Yudh’. It is directed by Rajkumar Santoshi and presents a fictional narrative and a dialogue between Mahatma Gandhi and Nathuram Godse.
Due to the non-commercial subject, there’s very little excitement. But since it’s a politically controversial subject, a small section of the audience is curious to see it. It releases on Thursday, January 26, and is expected to collect in the range of Rs. 10 lakhs and Rs. 50 lakhs. If word of mouth is positive, it might have a long run and can also have decent box office results.
