Sultan IndicineFBO Update

The response to the theatrical trailer of Salman Khan’s SULTAN has well and truly exceeded expectations. The trailer has not only made a huge impact on the internet, but the trade is in a celebratory mood too.

At mass centres, 2016 has been a dull year so far and Sultan is expected to surpass all films before the end of its first weekend itself (barring Housefull 3, which is yet to release).

Sultan is scheduled to release on Wednesday, 6th July 2016 i.e a day before the holiday for Eid. The muslim section of the audience tend to stay away from theatres on this day and the previous highest collections during Pre-Eid (Ramzan) is the first day collections of Bajrangi Bhaijaan (27.25 cr) and Kick (26.52 cr). Both those films released on working days and Sultan also won’t have any holiday advantage.

So the first target for Sultan will be a 30 crore plus total, which would be phenomenal. If the film manages to touch 33 crore or more, history will be made, as that would be equivalent to 46-47 crore on a ‘Post Ramazan National Holiday’.

To start with, we are looking at first day business of around 31 crore, which would be a good jump of 10-15% from the same day last year. That would be an excellent total too, but the question in the next few days will be if the other factors like music and word-of-mouth fall into place.

Not that music makes a big difference to a commercial Salman Khan film, but the difference between an earth-shattering opening and excellent Day 1 could be that 5% added advantage that chartbuster music gives – especially at smaller centres. Also, word-of-mouth is beginning to make an impact on collections as early as late-noon and evening shows at big centres.

Monsoon has an impact on film releases in July / August, especially in the South West of India – which includes the major state of Maharashtra. These are small factors, but they do make a big difference to films like Sultan because every centre needs to be high on occupancy for films to go above the 30 crore mark on a non-holiday.

The interesting factor to watch out for will be the miracles that Salman Khan can pull off on the opening day at the box office. Dabangg collected 14.5 crore in 2010, Bodyguard took it to another level by collecting 21.6 crore in 2011 and Ek Tha Tiger surpassed even the most unrealistic of expectations by collecting 32.93 crore in 2012. It’s that sort of earth-shattering opening that has been missing from 2013 to 2015. It’s overdue, so we could well have a big surprise when Sultan finally releases in theatres during Eid this year.

IndicineFBO: We start with 31 crore as the opening day collections of Salman Khan’s Sultan. The final prediction will be made a day before the release of the film. We will be including a new ‘graph’ feature to track the day-wise ups and downs of Sultan’s promotional campaign – so stay tuned for that. It will reflect a lot of factors that we use to make predictions.