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Join UsM.S. Dhoni – The Untold Story has defied all predictions at the Box Office. In this column I had predicted that the film would see an opening day of 17-18 crore. In fact many felt that I had gone overboard in my expectations for the film. Afer all, Neeraj Pandey’s biggest opening day has been for Baby [9.33 crore] and to double that would be stretching your imagination a little too wild. Then Sushant Singh Rajput hasn’t been particularly big at the Box Office and his biggest day has been Shuddh Desi Romance [6.5 crore]. So we were basically talking about almost tripling these numbers!
Well, lo and behold, all of this has not just happened big time but went much ahead of even my predictions! With 21.30 crore [Hindi, Tamil, Telugu] being collected in the first day itself, the film has more than doubled the opening day of Baby and more than tripled the opening day of Shuddh Desi Romance. In fact the film is also one of the biggest days ever for Fox as it is third only to their biggie Prem Ratan Dhan Payo [40.35 crore] and Bang Bang [27.54 crore].
Moreover, if one talks about the Day One records set in 2016, the film finds itself at the second position. While I had thought that it would just about compete with Fan for the Number 3 position, it has more than surpassed it with a very good margin, which pretty much tells the tale about the hype that had been generated pre-release and the content which ensured increase in footfalls with every passing show:
Sultan – 36.54 crore
M.S. Dhoni – The Untold Story – 21.30 crore
Fan – 19.2 crore
Housefull 3 – 15.2 crore
Rustom – 14.11 crore
The film has now already found itself in the big league and talks are no more veering towards whether it would enter the 100 crore club or not. In fact that is no more being debated and the game has changed to competing with the biggest in the league. If one leaves aside Sultan [105.53 crore], the next biggest weekends are Housefull 3 [53.31 crore] and Fan [52.35 crore]. Well, rest assured, these numbers would be surpassed by the time afternoon shows on Sunday would commence and that would make M.S. Dhoni – The Untold Story race further up the charts in a jiffy.
Bollywood has finally registered a new mega success 50 days after Rustom and now it is time to see how much bigger does it become in days to come.
*Estimates. Final numbers awaited
Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources
Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder
