Baahubali 2 ona roll to smash box-office records THE ~100 CR CLUB

Baahubali 2: The Conclusion perhaps saw the most hype seen by an Indian movie in recent times. The movie seems to be on course to deliver at that scale too.

S S Rajamouli’s sequel opened with a collection of ~121 crore (early estimates suggested ~125 crore) and continued its good run at the cinemas over the weekend, netting ~320-325 crore over the first three days of release. Baahubali 2 is now the highest opening Indian film, beating its predecessor Baahubali: The Beginning (2015) by a huge margin.

The highest opening weekend collection by a Bollywood film so far was by Sultan (2016) at ~180 crore. However, that movie was released midweek, enjoying a five-day opening weekend. Estimates have pegged the opening weekend collection for the Hindi version alone of the Rajamouli film at ~128 crore (net after tax).

Baahubali 2 seems set to break more records. It is already the most widely distributed Indian film at 6,500 screens. It is also the highest grossing Hindi dub version of a regional film. The movie seems set to be among the top Hindi movies of the year. Leading trade pundits had estimated a 30 per cent or less drop in collection on the first day of the week.

But Monday was a holiday for many offices and educational institutions on account of Labour Day and/or Maharashtra Day (in that state). Chances are high of Baahubali 2 surpassing the first part’s lifetime global gross collection of ~650 crore. Early reports said the international performance of the film (it was released in 2,500 screens outside India) was close to ~120 crore over the weekend.

This would make the worldwide gross for Baahubali 2 in the opening weekend approximately ~540 crore.