Kabali beats Sultan hands down, smashes box-office records
The Rajinikanth-starrer dubbed in multiple languages pulls in record ~50-55 cr on opening day
The 65-year-old Tamil superstar, Rajinikanth, shattered box-office records on Friday with his film Kabali pulling in ~50-55 crore on opening day, the biggest for an Indian film this year.
The figure includes collection from domestic and international markets and takes into account all languages in which the movie was released.
Salman Khan’s Sultan, which had the earlier distinction of opening to the highest first-day collection this year at ~36.54 crore, was only available in Hindi. Two-day collections of Kabali are expected to surpass ~100 crore, according to sources.
Produced on a budget of ~110 crore, the third-costliest Rajini film after Robot (~200 crore) and Kochadaiiyaan (~125 crore), Kabali was released in 10,000 screens, 6,000 in international markets, D Paranthaman, chief executive officer, V Creations, the producer of Kabali, had told Business Standard earlier. According to Taran Adarsh, film critic and business analyst, preview shows of Kabali in Tamil and Telugu generated collections of about ~13 crore in the US and Canada. He described this as an epic start for the film. He said Kabali had emerged number one in Malaysia taking into account Tamil and Telugu opening-day collections in that country and was number three in the US and Canada.
Sources said the version of Kabali dubbed in Hindi made ~5.2 crore net after tax on opening day, surpassing the record held by S S Rajmouli’s Baahubali. The Telugu film starring Prabhas and Rana Dagubatti had released worldwide on July 10, 2015, collecting close to ~5 crore for the Hindi dub that day.
Baahubali also holds the record for being the most successful regional film in India, with a lifetime collection of ~120 crore for the Hindi dub.
Kabali’s Hindi version was released in nearly 1,000 screens, fewer than Baahubali’s 1,500, but could surpass the latter’s lifetime collection if the Rajini magic continues. The dubbed Hindi version of Kabali is distributed by Fox Star Studios.
The Kabali fever saw movie tickets being snapped up both online and offline. BookMyShow, one of the largest domestic online movie ticket sellers, said Kabali would be among its top five films in ticket sales.
“After the first three days, online sales have been phenomenal and the film is sold out in most cinemas,” said Ashish Saksena, COO, cinemas, BookMyShow.
Paytm, which is selling Kabali tickets, said the opening weekend was sold out within hours. “Chennai and Hyderabad led the way to becoming our largest cities in the last three days,” said Renu Satti, vice-president, Paytm.
Paytm said as many as 10 tickets were being booked on its app at a time against the norm of 2-4 tickets per transaction. It has also received multiple requests for booking complete shows of Kabali.
Online marketplace Snapdeal, which recently tied up with BookMyShow, is offering discounts for buying Kabali tickets on its app.