Box office: Bharat gets Salman Khan’s biggest opener, earns Rs41.50 crore on day 1

As expected, the Salman Khan-starrer Bharat (2019) had a huge opening at the box office on Eid-ul-Fitr yesterday. The Ali Abbas Zafar film earned Rs41.50 crore on its first day, as per figures shared by BoxOfficeIndia.com. 

The makers released the film on the Eid holiday and this seemed to have worked wonders for the film. Bharat has now become the Salman Khan film with the highest opening, beating the previous record held by Sooraj Barjatya’s Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015), which made Rs39.32 crore on the day of its release. That film had been released on Diwali, another big holiday in India.

Bharat has also bagged the record of being the second highest Hindi opener. It beat the record set by the Hindi version of SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali: The Conclusion (2017), which had made Rs40.73 crore. 

The record for highest Hindi opener ever is still held by the Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Thugs Of Hindostan (2018). Released last Diwali, the film had opened to a mammoth Rs48.27 crore. But, as we all know, the severely negative word-of-mouth had affected the Vijay Krishna Acharya film and the collections dropped miserably from the second day. 

The same is not expected from Bharat as the response for the film has been mixed, not completely negative. Trade sources said the film has been made on a budget of between Rs100 crore and Rs150 crore and should recover the initial investment soon.