WILL RAID 2 MANAGE TO CROSS THE RS. 100 CRORE MARK?

Last week wasn’t great as expected, in terms of box office. Ground Zero will not reach Rs. 10 crores while Phule will barely cross the Rs. 1 crore mark. However, Kesari Chapter 2 continued to be rock steady while Jaat also did well. And now all eyes are on the big release of the coming week, Raid 2.

As the name suggests, it is a sequel to Raid. This time, the protagonist, played by Ajay Devgn, will face Riteish Deshmukh. Vaani Kapoor is the female lead and she replaces Ileana DCruz. The trailer has been well-received and there’s a perception that here’s a film which will be something to watch out for. The song ‘Nasha’ featuring Tamannaah Bhatia has grabbed eyeballs and further added to the buzz.

The earlier part opened at Rs. 9.45 crores and ended up collecting Rs. 98.02 crores in its lifetime. Raid 2 releases on a Thursday to take advantage of the holidays in Maharashtra and Gujarat and a partial holiday in the rest of the country due to International Labour Day. The advance is decent and it can have an opening of Rs. 10 crores. If all goes well, it can even cross the Rs. 15 crore mark, but this will depend on the jump the film takes from noon onwards. The collections will dip as Friday is a normal working day. But the footfalls will see another jump on Saturday and Sunday. At this rate, the film will cross the Rs. 50 crore mark in its four-day weekend. Once that happens, entering the Rs. 100 crore mark shouldn’t be a problem, considering the limited competition from Hindi films until June 6.

The other release of the week is The Bhootnii. It is a horror comedy starring Sanjay Dutt, Mouni Roy, Sunny Singh and Palak Tiwari. The trailer hasn’t been appreciated and even the songs haven’t worked. The film has got a limited release, as a result. It’ll have some advantage tomorrow due to the holiday and genre.

However, a film that might spring a surprise is Thunderbolts. It belongs to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and this franchise hasn’t had a great run off late. But this film has generated a lot of excitement. The advances are decent and it can have an opening of Rs. 5-6 crores or even more. The target should be to cross the first-day earnings of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3. It earned Rs. 6.68 crores and like Thunderbolts, it was also critically acclaimed. That film managed to cross the Rs. 50 crores mark and that should also be the target of Thunderbolts.