The overseas advance bookings for Dunki kicked off last week. Now seven days since then and seven days to release, the film has raked in over USD 300K for the Thursday opening day, with the overall weekend going over USD 500K. At the same time prior to release, the presales are third best of the year for Bollywood. The ranking probably holds true historically as advance sales didn’t open this far out previously.
The two films ahead of Dunki are the other two Shah Rukh Khan starrers Jawan and Pathaan. The reason for that is the genre, as action films have more initial value and Dunki being a comedy-drama is supposed to have more backloaded sales. It is ahead of the other two big films of the year, Tiger 3 and Animal, despite being a mid-week release. That said, Animal had a big surge after the trailer release, so the final standing of the two could end closer.
The biggest contributor to sales is the United States, with over USD 120K in sales at the end of the day Wednesday. However, the best response is in Australia and Canada, both being around 80 per cent of Jawan at the same time. In Canada the film went on sale just two days ago, making it even more impressive. The film being set in Punjab could be the reason as these two markets have a very big Punjabi diaspora presence. The Middle East is relatively low but it is probably here where the genre is making the biggest impact and considering that they are acceptable.
Based on the pre-sales, Dunki is eyeing a USD 2.50 million plus start on Thursday, on the high end it can probably go over USD 3 million. With a favourable reception, the four-day weekend can go over USD 15 million. The Christmas-New Year window begins from Monday which is a very lucrative period for the box office and that should enable the film to post numbers similar to weekends on weekdays. All that needs to be seen is how the reception goes, if all goes well, it is set to be another mega-grosser for Shah Rukh Khan in 2023.
