Dilwale, Bajirao Mastani 8th Day Box Office Collections

Shah Rukh Khan’s Dilwale showed some growth at the box office, even though the film lost screens and shows to both ‘Bajirao Mastani’ and Hollywood film ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’. The film has collected around 8.1 crore at the box office.

The other release, Bajirao Mastani was simply phenomenal right from the start of the day. The film is now performing well Pan-India and even centres that started slowly have gained tremendous momentum. The film has collected around Rs 12.25 crore. It has crossed the Rs 100 crore mark at the box office

As far as the clash is concerned, it was expected to be Dilwale all the way and the Rohit + SRK combo after Chennai Express was expected to set the box office on fire. But Eros have been smart and have played their cards well. They were ruthless prior to the release of the film, ensuring that their film got a wide enough release. Their distribution experience and expertise has helped. Post release, the content has completely taken over.

While a solo release might have helped, releasing Bajirao Mastani during Christmas has proved to be extremely beneficial. The clash against a Shah Rukh Khan starrer ensured sustained publicity all over the media and internet. The ticket prices are on the higher side during festive weekends and now in Week 2, it was clearly the first choice for movie goers at multiplexes.

Dilwale too hasn’t really succumbed after the initial hype, even with considerably lesser number of shows in Week 2 and tough competition from the other releases, it has performed reasonably well. Especially at single-screens where it was rock-solid on its 8th day.

However, a film like this, for the kind of price it was sold for, had to collect in the range of Rs 225 – 250 for the distributors to recover their investment. Shah Rukh Khan, the producer, is safe and Dilwale will be a profitable venture for him, but individual distributors are set to lose. Rajasthan distributor will lose around half his investment of Rs 8.5 crore and Delhi/UP and Punjab distributor is also set to lose.

In the overseas markets, the story is completely different. Bajirao Mastani is performing very well and has now crossed $7 million mark (Rs 46 crore), but Dilwale is inching closer to the 100 crore mark, with collections more than double as compared to Bajirao Mastani. The 8-day overseas business of Dilwale has crossed the 90 crore mark and should get past 100 crore by the end of this week.

The worldwide gross collections of the two films is around Rs 245 crore for Bajirao Mastani and Rs 182 crore.