It’s that time of the year again when the festival of Eid and Salman Khan’s keenly awaited movie arrive together. The actor is going through a golden phase at the box office since Dabangg was released in 2010. His record has specially been phenomenal on Eid. This time, he is back with Kabir Khan’s anti-war drama Tubelight.
So far, he has had films like Wanted (2009), Dabangg (2010), Bodyguard (2011), Ek Tha Tiger (2012), Kick (2014), Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) and Sultan (2016) releasing on the festival and all have turned out to be big winners.
So, needless to say, the expectations are high this time too. Trade analyst Atul Mohan believes that Eid and Salman go hand-in-hand. “There is a joke that one realises it is Eid when Salman Khan’s movie releases. Both have become so synonymous,” he said, while discussing Tubelight’s box office prospects with Cinestaan.com.
Mohan believes expectations are highest from Salman this time around. “There are always expectations from Salman’s new movie to do better than the previous one. It is seen in his last few films like Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015) and Sultan that the collections are becoming bigger. For trade expectations, we are looking at a bigger number from Salman now. Dangal (2016) did some fantastic business even in demonetisation times. If the content has the potential, we can do such business. So, the expectations have risen. Salman should now do something big,” he said.
With Tubelight, expectations are not from Salman alone. “The same is with Kabir Khan too. His Ek Tha Tiger (2012) made Rs199 crore (in India) and Bajrangi Bhaijaan reached Rs300 crore. Whenever the combination of a director and actor becomes so successful, expectations keep rising,” added Mohan.
A big Salman movie always creates a blast at the box office, especially in the first weekend. This time, it’s a long weekend as Eid falls on Monday, 26 June. So, how much can one expect Tubelight to make? “In the first four days, it will earn around Rs130-Rs135 crore,” says the trade analyst.
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He is also sure that the advance booking sales will zoom up. “The advance booking has gone up in today’s times of online booking. The advance booking itself should ensure around 50% above collections for Tubelight. Rest will be on walk-in.”
But what if the content doesn’t turn out to be satisfactory? Mohan believes the film will still get a good number in the initial days. “As I said, in the first four days it surely has to do a business of Rs130 crore. So, we can say the film will earn Rs150 crore in the first five days,” he said.
He also adds that the responsibility of a superstar is to get in big numbers in the initial few days. But following this, it all depends on the content. “This goes for every film. The task of these stars is to get good business in the first 3-4 days. After this period, it all comes down to the content. For example, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Dangal and Sultan had good content,” he signed off.