Rustom vs Mohenjo Daro: Box Office Prediction

The clash is finally set to take place tomorrow. Akshay Kumar’s 3rd film of 2016 ‘Rustom’ and Hrithik Roshan’s first film in 2 years ‘Mohenjo Daro’ are all set to battle it out at the only place that matters – the box office.

Let’s get straight to the point.

Factors in favour of Mohenjo Daro and against Rustom:

• Hrithik Roshan’s first film after nearly 2 years – his last release was Bang Bang which released in October 2014.
• Mohenjo Daro has the potential to appeal to a larger section of the audience, compared to Rustom which is niche and multiplex-targeted film.
• Ashutosh Gowarikar is one of the best directors in the industry – he has previously directed the Oscar nominated Lagaan, Swades and Jodhaa Akbar. In comparison, Tinu Suresh Anand has directed just one film – 1920 London, which didn’t do well at the box office.

Factors in favour of Rustom and against Mohenjo Daro:

• Akshay Kumar is enjoying one of the best phases of his career. He’s doing different films and the multiplex audience – who weren’t willing to watch his films not too long ago – are now coming back to theatres. He’s had a very good year so far with Airlift and Housefull 3 – both doing well at the box office.
• The trailers and the promos of Rustom received a positive response, which is probably the biggest factor that differentiates the two films. Almost every promo of Mohenjo Daro has received a lukewarm response and generally hasn’t been liked.
• The economics are in favour of Rustom. Since the film doesn’t have to recover a lot of money (the film will break-even when it crosses 75-80 crore domestic), a 12-13 crore opening will be considered good for the film, whereas for Mohenjo Daro it’ll be poor with a lot of work left to do in the remaining days.

In short, whether it’s the trailer, promos or the aggressive marketing campaign – Rustom has had the lead right from the day the trailer was released on the internet. Mohenjo Daro doesn’t have much in its favour apart from Hrithik Roshan’s presence and the director’s credentials. The film will rely on word-of-mouth. Mohenjo Daro will have to be a very good film to even get close to recovering costs.

It’s a difficult prediction to make, because word-of-mouth can come into effect as early as Friday noon. However, we are going with a bold prediction. Our winner for the first day is ’Rustom’.  We expect the film to collect Rs 12.6 crore tomorrow, while Mohenjo Daro should do around 10.7 crore.