New Delhi: Salman Khan’s Race 3 has not managed to sustain its hold over the box office after a massive Eid opening. Debuting with a ₹100 crore plus first weekend, the film managed about ₹16 crore over the second weekend, a slump of nearly 84%, according to trade website Box Office India. Analysts say the drop in the action thriller’s earnings would have had to be less than 75% compared to the first weekend, for it to be considered a hit.
Evidently, majority of the ₹ 155 crore the film has made till now, have come from the first weekend. One of the lowest numbers come from Mumbai where the film will not even reach the ₹ 50 crore mark.
“It is evident from the numbers that the film could not go through the second weekend,” said film trade and exhibition expert Girish Johar pointing to a Hollywood animation film like Incredibles 2 that released last Friday and made ₹ 17.25 crore over the weekend compared to Race 3 that made ₹ 16 crore over the same period.
To be sure, the ongoing Fifa World Cup and a spate of Hollywood releases including heist comedy Ocean’s 8, animation film Incredibles 2 and supernatural horror flick Hereditary may have eaten into Race 3’ box-office collections apart from the fact that the Remo D’Souza directed film has had to seep into a regular week after the big Eid holiday. There is also the fact that thriller isn’t a movie genre that has ever worked exceedingly well in the country, as pointed out by Box Office India. Examples include big-ticket films like Shah Rukh Khan’s Fan (₹ 84.03 crore) and Aamir Khan’s Talaash (₹ 91.23 crore).
But trade analysts say that quite a few of Bollywood’s biggest stars have had to deal with these dampeners after relatively impressive opening weekends. Khan’s last Eid release Tubelight opened at ₹ 20.55 crore and ₹ 61.53 crore over the first day and weekend respectively but eventually petered down to lifetime collections of ₹ 114.57 crore. Shah Rukh Khan’s romantic comedy Jab Harry Met Sejal also started with ₹ 14.69 crore and ₹ 43.28 crore over the first day and weekend respectively but ended up only with ₹ 62 crore ultimately.
“This is purely a matter of content,” Johar said. “In trade parlance, the star’s job is to get the opening, the rest depends on whether the director and script can match people’s expectations.”