Box office ‘kicked’: Rs57.8m in three days

Salman Khan starrer Kick creates history by getting a record opening and Eid collection in Pakistan.

KARACHI:

There are films that fulfill your expectations on the box office and then there are films that outperform your expectations. But then there are the game changers, the ones that bring about unimaginable results at the box office and Salman Khan’s Kick did just that in Pakistan. After all, it earned a whopping Rs57.8 million in Pakistan over the three days of Eid, creating box office history.

Excluding the few pre Eid shows, Kick formally opened in Pakistan on the first day of Eid and generated a total of Rs20.8 million in one day. No film ever in the history of local box office has received an opening of more than Rs20 million.

The film received housefuls in both, single screen cinemas and multiplexes and the trend hiked on the second day of Eid. This is when the film went to earn an even bigger total of Rs22 million in one day and the third day of Eid saw a slight decline with a total business of Rs15 million.

Biggest opening ever

Expectedly, Salman Khan proved to be a goldmine for the box office, as Kick created history with its all-time high with a collection of Rs20.8 million on the first day of Eid.

Kick not only breaks the Rs11.4 million opening day business of Waar, but also eclipses Dhoom 3‘s all-time highest opening day collection of Rs19 million.

 



 

Kick sets new records in Karachi, Hyderabad and Multan

All previous opening records were broken at the historic Bambino cinema, where Kick generated an average collection of Rs180,000 per show on the first day of Eid, with the first show making up to as much as Rs200,000.

“Kick has broken all previous records of opening collections at our cinema but the exact grand figure will be compiled by this evening,” Adeel Siddiqui, the owner of Bambino cinema told The Express Tribune.

According to sources, even Ghalib cinema in Korangi received the highest-ever opening with an average of Rs70, 000 per show, which is quite significant. The owners of Ghalib are yet to corroborate these figures.

On the other hand, Dreamland cinema in Multan set a new record by earning Rs1 million in one day and the Hyderabad circuit generated the highest-ever one-day return of Rs1.3 million.  The film was released in two cinemas in Hyderabad with Bambino cinema alone generating Rs0.7 million.

Can Kick be the all-time winner?

To date, Dhoom 3 holds the record of the highest grossing film in Pakistan, with a whopping Rs240 million as its total business. Having said that, Dhoom 3‘s huge earnings can be attributed to a few odds that worked in its favour and the most significant among them was the fact that there was a ban on Indian films for about two months before Dhoom 3 was released.

At the time of the release, people who were craving quality films raided both the multiplexes and single screens in Pakistan, making the film achieve this milestone. Apart from that, no significant Bollywood film followed the Dhoom 3 release for a couple of weeks, which gave it a smooth running at the box office.

 



 

Kick has the advantage of being released on Eid, but also faces possible competition from Akshay Kumar’s Its Entertainment and Ajay Devgn’s much-anticipated Singham Returns, scheduled to release 10 and 16 days from now, respectively. Both these films may reduce Kick’s chances of achieving anything extraordinary in the long run, but Salman Khan has always proved the odds wrong.

Let’s see if Kick manages to become the all-time highest grossing film in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 2^nd, 2014.

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