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The business dimensions of the film industry have changed massively in the last 18 years, as now, the collections of the film on the opening day and weekend have gained a lot of prominence as compared to the long run in the cinema halls and at the box office.
The first record opener of this millennium was Refugee, which was the launch vehicle of two star-kids, Abhishek Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor. The film, directed by JP Dutta raked in Rs 1.56 crore on its first day, thereby shattering all previous opening day records.
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The was eventually broken by Mission Kashmir in 2001, which collected Rs 1.65 crore on its opening day despite a clash with Shah Rukh Khan – Amitabh Bachchan starrer, Mohabbatien. The hype surrounding Mission Kashmir was so high, thanks to Hrithik Roshan’s popularity, that without a clash, it would have become the first Hindi film to collect over Rs 2.00 crore on its opening day. Well so on and so forth, almost every year came a film that broke the opening day record of the previous film. The industry has shown a growth from Rs 1.56 crore opening day in 2000 to Rs 41 crore opening day in 2017, however there is still a lot of scope to improve and if all goes as expected, the industry might get to see the first Rs 50 crore opener this year.
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While there are 24 record openers in the list, the films that deserve a special mention are Krrish, which broke the previous record by a margin of 52%, Bodyguard which surpassed the previous record holder by a margin of 48% and Ek Tha Tiger which shattered all records by a margin of 50%.
While films like Refugee, Ajnabee, Indian, Dus, Bunty Aur Babli and Race are the surprise entrants in the list, there are quite a lot of obvious films as well like Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Singh Is King, Ghajini, Ek Tha Tiger to name a few. Since 2000, Aamir Khan has delivered 5 record openers, Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan have been a part of 4 record openers each where as Hrithik Roshan (4 if we include K3G) has 3 record openers and Abhishek Bachchan (5 if we include Dhoom 3 and Happy New Year) have 3 record openers, Akshay Kumar has delivered 2 record openers and finally Saif Ali Khan and Sunny Deol have 1 record opener each.
1. Refugee: Rs 1.56 crore
2. Mission Kashmir: Rs 1.65 crore
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3. Ajnabee: Rs 1.66 crore
4. Indian: Rs 1.80 crore
5. Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham: Rs 2.38 crore
6. Main Hoon Na: Rs 2.73 crore
7. Bunty Aur Babli: Rs 2.91 crore
8. Dus: Rs 2.92 crore
9. Mangal Pandey: Rs 3.25 crore
10. Fanaa: Rs 3.95 crore
11. Krrish: Rs 6.00 crore
12. Race: Rs 6.32 crore
13. Singh is Kinng: Rs 7.24 crore
14. Ghajini: Rs 9.07 crore
15. 3 Idiots: Rs 12.50 crore
16. Dabangg: Rs 14.50 crore
17. Bodyguard: Rs 21.50 crore
18. Agneepath: Rs 22.00 crore
19. Ek Tha Tiger: Rs 32.92 crore
20. Chennai Express: Rs 33.12 crore
21. Dhoom 3: Rs 33.53 crore
22. Happy New Year: Rs 39.00 crore**
23. Prem Ratan Dhan Payo: Rs 40.35 crore
24. Baahubali 2: Rs 41.00 Crore
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