Director Rajkumar Hirani’s Sanju (2018) is off to a flying start as far as the advance booking sales are concerned. The biopic of senior actor Sanjay Dutt, starring actor Ranbir Kapoor, has earned Rs20.50 crore in advance bookings itself.
This is the fifth highest advance booking number recorded in India. Interestingly, the first two films in the list, Baahubali: The Conclusion (2017), which made Rs37.53 crore and Avengers: Infinity War (2018), which scored Rs28.14 crore, are not Hindi films. Baahubali 2 was dubbed in Hindi.
As far as Hindi films are concerned, Sanju stands third after Tiger Zinda Hai (2017) at Rs24.76 crore) and Sultan (2016) with Rs21.53 crore in advance bookings collections. The fourth Hindi film in the list is Race 3 (2018) with Rs19.16 crore. So, in other words, Sanju is the first time that a non-Salman Khan film has entered in the top four list of all time highest advance bookings for a Hindi film.
With positive reactions pouring in, Sanju is expected to finish at a decent figure in the first weekend.
Meanwhile, Khan-starrer Race 3 has finished its second week with a collection of Rs24.75 crore. This takes the grand total of the film to Rs164.72 crore. The film, directed by Remo D’Souza, had opened remarkably well by reaching the Rs100-crore mark in the first three days. But it later suffered due to the negative word-of-mouth.
Race 3 review: This vehicle runs out of gas long before the finish line
Needless to say, Sanju will now put the brakes on Race 3.