GADAR - EK PREM KATHA and LAGAAN released twenty years back and below are the opening day collections from some centres. Obviously they do not compare much with the collections seen today but both films opened to more or less full occupancy depending on the centre and could not do much more.

LAGAAN did manage to compete in Mumbai city and even lead in Pune city and South but it was GADAR all the way in the rest of India. The gaps were huge in the Hindi circuits and this was despite the fact that in some places, GADAR played in the weaker cinema. But that did not matter as the audience was not coming for the cinema but for the film.

Both films had a rural setting though that setting was presented more for the classes in LAGAAN. Today the industry has a huge problem as it is unable to make big films with a rural setting and tend to go the Hollywood way for action depending on high scale action and money shots. History says the bigger HITS are always likely to have a rural setting.

The collections of GADAR - EK PREM KATHA and LAGAAN on day one at some centres are below. The number of cinemas is in brackets.

Gadar - 18,51,000 (26)

Lagaan - 16,13,000 (21)

Gadar - 4,50,000 (8)

Lagaan - 3,95,000 (5)

Gadar - 16,25,000 (16)

Lagaan - 14,00,000 (16)

Gadar - 1,32,000 (2)

Lagaan - 75,000 (3)

Gadar - 71,000 (1)

Lagaan - 58,000 (1)

Gadar - 80,000 (1)

Lagaan - 64,000 (1)

Gadar - 1,02,000 (1)

Lagaan - 65,000 (1)

Gadar - 1,88,000 (4)

Lagaan - 1,32,000 (4)

Gadar - 2,50,000 (3)

Lagaan - 1,45,000 (3)

Gadar - 4,50,000 (10)

Lagaan - 5.80,000 (13)

GADAR - EK PREM KATHA showed decent collections its its repeat run as it collected 30 lakhs nett apprx on limited shows. BAAHUBALI: THE BEGINNING had also released just a few weeks before the release of BAAHUBALI 2: THE CONCLUSION and that film had collected 50 lakhs. But it was a much bigger release with over 4000 shows while here for GADAR - EK PREM KATHA, there are hardly around 700 shows.

Today there are new films releasing on over 5000 screenings and they collect around 1 crore nett. So. 30 lakhs for a 22 year old film on 20-25% of the screenings is pretty good. The film is a regular on satellite and its pretty much been seen by one and all; its likely the audience is coming for nostalgia.

GADAR - EK PREM KATHA is among those 8-10 biggest BLOCKBUSTERS in the history of Indian cinema and very few films have created such an impact in cinema halls. At time of release, this film was also called a propaganda film but the difference as compared to the likes of THE KASHMIR FILES or THE KERALA STORY was that it outperformed in Muslim centres across UP, Bihar, MP and Gujarat. This community whole heartedly accepted this film which is not the case with the likes of THE KASHMIR FILES or THE KERALA STORY

The collections are also good news for GADAR 2 and shows that there is recall value even though Sunny Deol is not the big star today that he was in 2001. But the character he played in GADAR - EK PREM KATHA is one of the most popular characters in cinema. The tough part is that GADAR - EK PREM KATHA is an epic and its harder to make sequels for such historic films than say popcorn entertainment like DHOOM, GOLMAAL, HOUSEFULL etc.