The advance booking for the much-awaited KGF: Chapter 2 opened at limited centres on Thursday noon and the initial response is simply fantastic. The film, fronted by Yash with Sanjay Dutt in negative role, started to record houseful shows in no time across the nation, with mass belts firing beyond all expectations. Within 12 hours, KGF 2 has sold approximately 1.07 lakh tickets in the Hindi belts with a total gross of Rs 3.35 crore (Rs 2.83 crore nett).
The advance bookings are strong across the country, with Delhi leading from the front with ticket sales in the range of Rs 75 lakh, followed by Mumbai with a total of approximately Rs 60 lakh. Centres like Pune, Surat, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Jaipur and Lucknow too have grossed over Rs 10 lakh each through sale of tickets in advance in a short span of time. The bookings haves opened on just limited shows as of now, and full-fledged advances will open by Sunday, when the sales will just go higher and higher. Smaller centres like Bhubaneshwar, Patna, Allahabad have given a signal that KGF 2 will be a one-horse race in the mass belt and the deeper you dig into the tier 2 and 3 circuits, the strong would the collections be.
To put things to perspective, the SS Rajamouli directed RRR had an overall advance of Rs 5.08 crore and KGF 2 already stands at Rs 3.35 crore with a week left for release. The data collated for RRR was on 3788 shows, whereas KGF 2 bookings have just opened on 1839 shows at the moment. The overall bookings for KGF 2 by end of Wednesday is expected to be anywhere around Rs 15 to 17 crore gross in the Hindi belts and it’s the final screen count and showcasing that will give an insight about the opening day biz. There is a holiday factor too that’s coming into account, but the hype around KGF is at a level wherein a holiday or non-holiday release doesn’t make much of a difference as the arrival of Rocky would have been an enough reason for the audience to pronounce a holiday.
The film has all the hype going in it’s favour and a solo release on April 14 would have ensured a Rs 50 crore start for the film. But now, the capacity cap will come into play after a point of time, as KGF 2 will be sharing screens with the Shahid Kapoor fronted Jersey at almost all national chains. Early estimates suggest that KGF 2 will be getting 60 percent of the showcasing with Jersey taking over the 40% at the national chains. The final opening day biz will depend on what capacity does KGF 2 have to explode, and we shall have a clearer picture on that by Wednesday.
While KGF arrived as an underdog with very few giving it a chance in the Hindi belts, the second part is already proving to be a box office monster. Stay tuned to Pinkvilla for in-depth reportage of KGF 2 in the coming few days.
