Tubelight Friday Collection Update

With just the late-night shows to go, Salman Khan’s Tubelight is looking at below-average numbers on the first day. The film could fall below the 20 crore mark on Friday, because so far the collections (not occupancy) are only slightly better than a film like Jai Ho which released more than 3 and a half years ago.

The collections are also significantly lower than Salman’s other ‘pre-Eid’ releases like Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Kick. The film was pretty much a washout at single-screens when compared to the high standards that the superstar has set over the years. The occupancy at several theatres was less than 50% of Salman’s 2016 Eid release ‘Sultan’.

For example, at single-screen in the North (5 shows), Sultan collected Rs 93,380, Bajrangi Bhaijaan collected Rs 76,630, while Tubelight has only collected around 44,200 at the end of the night show. Multiplexes were equally poor when compared to other ‘event’ films in recent times.

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If the first day total does indeed fall below the 20 crore mark, the last hope for even a face-saving lifetime total would be the Eid holiday. When the opening disappoints, the only thing that can save films is word-of-mouth. Unfortunately, the reports are mixed to negative, so it remains to be seen where the film goes from here.

The reasons for the film receiving a lukewarm response on the opening day are several. The trailer simply did not generate interest like most Salman films do (we mentioned this time and again in our articles). One song (Radio) worked, but it was nowhere close to some of the chartbusters that we’ve had during Eid.

The pre-release reports weren’t very positive either. When the makers decided to cut almost 15 minutes of the film at the very last moment, it was a clear hint that they weren’t too happy with the way the film had shaped up.