Akshay Kumar returns to his favourite Independence Day spot for the 9th time with the Aanand L Rai directed Raksha Bandhan. The film pairs him with Bhumi Pednekar and the story is set in the heartland of India. Raksha Bandhan was U by the Central Board of Film Certification with an approved runtime of 1 hour 50 minutes (110 minutes). The low runtime has enabled the team to fetch good showcasing across the country.
The family drama is looking to release on approximately 2500 screens in India, with good distribution in the tier 2 and tier 3 cities. With runtime under check, the film is expected to have around 10,000 shows per day as one screen would have the bandwidth to have 5 shows per day. The advance opened for Raksha Bandhan on Friday with popular pricing. The movie has sold approximately 7950 tickets for the opening day at the three national chains as of Monday afternoon. If we look at overall bookings for the extended opening weekend, the ticket sale of Raksha Bandhan stands at 12,000. While the bookings for Laal Singh Chaddha are evenly divided between the opening day and the extended weekend, Raksha Bandhan bookings are primarily for the opening day at this point of time.
The movie has sold approximately 7950 tickets for the opening day at the three national chains as of Monday afternoon. If we look at overall bookings for the extended opening weekend, the ticket sale of Raksha Bandhan stands at 12,000
Himesh Mankad
The bookings as of now are better than Samrat Prithviraj and Shamshera, however, much lower than films like Jug Jugg Jeeyo, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and 83. As of Tuesday morning, Samrat Prithviraj had sold approximately 2400 tickets at PVR, whereas Raksha Bandhan already stands at a sale of 4000 tickets. Likewise Jug Jugg Jeeyo had sold 6600 tickets in PVR. Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 stood at a sale of 3200 in Cinepolis and the corresponding sale of Raksha Bandhan in the same property is around 1400. Akshay Kumar films are generally low on advances and high on spot bookings and Raksha Bandhan is expected to follow the same trend.
The good news for Raksha Bandhan lies in the fact that it’s on par with Laal Singh Chaddha at some centres outside the national chains, and even better on the advance front in certain markets like Gujarat. There is a demarcation of audience, with metros preferring Laal Singh Chaddha in a big way (almost double), but the farther one steps away from the metros, the narrower is the gap between the two films. The final closing for Raksha Bandhan at the national chains for the opening day is expected to be around 50,000, which will be in the same range as Samrat Prithviraj (41,000 approx.) and Shamshera (48,000 approx.) but lower than Jug Jugg Jeeyo (57,000).
The good news for Raksha Bandhan lies in the fact that it’s on par with Laal Singh Chaddha at some centres outside the national chains, and even better on the advance front in certain markets like Gujarat. There is a demarcation of audience
Himesh Mankad
The advances suggest an opening day in the range of Rs 8.00 to 9.50 crore, however, if the reports are strong and translates into footfalls on the day, we don’t rule out the possibility of a 10 crore plus start for this Akshay Kumar film. There is Raksha Bandhan festival on Thursday and this can push the opening numbers of the film in the tier 2 and 3 centres due to the relatability factor of the festival in the masses and female audience and in turn even surprise on the opening front. It’s all the game of spot bookings and till then, we got to wait and watch on how the advances unfold. The biz of Raksha Bandhan will strongly depend on the reception in areas farther from the key metros.
Stay tuned to Pinkvilla for more reports on the box office run of Raksha Bandhan.