SAIYAARA IS UNSTOPPABLE; SURPRISE BLOCKBUSTER OF THE YEAR

As predicted last week, Saiyaara opened at Rs. 21.50 crores. The industry was stunned as no one expected a non-action and non-big scale film with a new star cast to open in such a manner. The word of mouth was positive and as a result, the film earned Rs. 26 crores on Saturday. On Sunday, it earned a huge Rs. 35.75 crores.

Usually, films on Monday drop to 40-50% of Friday’s collections. Hence, in an ideal situation, it should have earned around Rs. 11-13 crores on Monday. But Saiyaara managed to earn more than Friday, that is, Rs. 23.75 crores. Thanks to the cheap ticket offer, the Tuesday collections amounted to Rs. 24.50 crores. On Wednesday, the film earned as much as it earned on Friday – Rs. 21.50 crores. The Thursday collections are expected to be around Rs. 18-19 crores. As a result, its first week collections are Rs. 172 crores.

Realizing that Saiyaara is going to be unstoppable, Ajay Devgn and Jio Studios made the sound decision and postponed their film Son Of Sardaar 2 from July 25 to August 1. Had Son Of Sardaar 2 been released on its original date, there would have been a fight between distributors of both films over screen sharing. Thankfully, that ugly situation has been averted.

Saiyaara is expected to earn around Rs. 240-250 crores by the end of the second weekend. The hold on the weekdays will determine its lifetime earnings. It will surely cross the Rs. 300 crore club and if all goes well, it might even earn more than Rs. 400 crores. It has all the time until War 2’s release on August 14 to earn, which is more than enough.

Often, the industry and trade are sad over Bollywood’s state of affairs. Films that are expected to do well fail miserably. But on the other hand, a film like Saiyaara comes out of nowhere and rewrites records. This is what makes the box office unpredictable and therefore, exciting.

Tomorrow, two films will be up for release. The Fantastic Four: First Steps might surprise despite the Saiyaara wave and earn around Rs. 6-7 crores. Mahavatar Narsimha is an animated mythological flick. Due to the genre, it has a chance to pull in the audience.