DHURANDHAR THE REVENGE has broken all box office records in terms of paid previews and advances. The paid previews are around 40 crore nett though this figure maybe adjusted lower as it includes a lot of advance numbers which had shows cancelled due to no delivery of content. This sort of collection has never been seen before for paid previews as STREE 2 held that record but that was less than 10 crore nett.

The release here for paid previews was also at a different level as it was almost like a like a full release despite the film releasing at 5 pm. There has never been such a volume of shows for paid previews as far as Hindi cinema goes. The collections were driven by crazy collections from South India followed by Mumbai city and NCR. The collections from the South circuits in paid previews are just phenomenal as Bangalore collects as much as Mumbai city which is unthinkable for a Hindi film. Hyderabad is also out of the roof.

The core Hindi circuits are lesser but paid preview culture is also less here and the content delivery issue would have affected these areas most. But if you take out the comparison with South and metros and just see these collections as a standalone, then they are also phenomenal and here it will only get better.

The advances of the film for day one finished at 35 crore nett beating the record of JAWAN which was 28.50 crore nett. However, DHURANDHAR THE REVENGE film released at 5 pm which pushed the evening and night momentum more than normal. So, its probably a crore or two higher than fair value comparing with other films which released the next day. Even taking that out, its a record by a good margin and first film to get an advance of over 30 crore nett for the first day. The total advances for the weekend and paid previews stood at an insane 115-120 crore nett just before the first show commenced at 5 pm.

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DHURANDHAR THE REVENGE has taken a historic start and one of the biggest openings of recent times, if not the biggest. Its always difficult to compare with films from a different time as the release structure changes but if you take this multiplex era since 2010, then the biggest would probably be BODYGUARD (2011), EK THA TIGER (2012), BAAHUBALI 2: THE CONCLUSION (2017) and then post pandemic it would be KGF - CHAPTER 2, PUSHPA 2 - THE RULE and now DHURANDHAR THE REVENGE.

These films would be the cream of the cream in the last fifteen years or so as far as those opening shows goes on that first morning. It gets a bit complicated comparing films from earlier periods but no doubt even before, there were films which were a craze and maybe even bigger than the films mentioned above.

It is easily noticeable that all the films post pandemic are sequels and actually if you look at the list, its Salman Khan and then sequels which pretty much spells out what has happened to the box office over the last decade or so with the shift from star power to sequels. The films from the South were never record grossers as far as the first part went but here, DHURANDHAR THE REVENGE is the second part of a record grosser. So, this sort of opening was actually a given and on top DHURANDHAR had more appreciation compared to a PUSHPA or KGF though this is arguable when compared with a BAAHUBALI.

DHURANDHAR THE REVENGE has already pocketed around 40 crore nett in paid previews. Its set to just going to obliterate the box office and will probably show how big the Hindi market is at present. It is a holiday period with a rare craze and on top of it, it has record ticket pricing. Although pricing is the way to bigger box office, its probably been taken too far high but its working. This initial weekend of four days and paid previews could be smashing the first week records of some of the biggest openers. 

The first day collection will be a record but it remains to be seen where this number goes and does it beat the record of JAWAN by 10%, 20% or even more.