'Furious 7' is all set to be Pakistan's highest-grossing Hollywood film ever

The movie has earned a whopping Rs4.5 crore in its opening two days at the box office

KARACHI: Earning Rs4.5 crore in its opening two days at the box office, Furious 7 seems to have raced far ahead of its competition with the other movies released thus far likely to play catch up in the coming few days.

Mirza Saad Beg, Company Secretary of Footprint Media reported that the movie has earned a remarkable Rs4.5 crores in its opening two days with figures of the third day yet to be calculated.

According to Abid Ali Zaidi, Assistant Marketing Manager of Cinepax Cinemas, the film is being screened at 36 locations nationwide. “Judging by the response we have seen in the opening few days we are expecting the film to finish within a bracket of Rs18 to 20 crores alongside popular Indian films like PK and Dhoom 3,” told Zaidi. Should this happen, the movie will be the highest-grossing Hollywood movie at the Pakistani box office. However, it should be noted that the above mentioned figures do not include Atrium and Centaurus cinemas.

So far the film has received an overwhelming response both on multiplexes and single-screen cinemas. Director of Capri Cinema, Farrukh Rauf termed the performance of the film as ‘unprecedented’ because he has never seen a Hollywood film do so well in Pakistani cinemas before. He further added that over the course of the weekend Capri Cinema had recorded a turnout of almost 13,000 people across all Furious 7 shows.

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“We had 12 shows for Furious 7 this weekend out of which five shows were completely sold out whereas the remaining seven shows were close to a full house,” continued the cinema director. “The movie is on its way to becoming one of the biggest films of 2015 in Pakistani cinemas. The last few months were a lean period because of the World Cup with no major Indian releases during that period, due to which Roy (which was expected to do well) turned out to be a disappointment at the box office,” stated Rauf.

Sheikh Adeel Imtiaz, owner of Bambino Cinema, believes that the movie seems to be benefiting from a variety of factors one of which is that this Furious 7 marks Paul Walker’s final appearance in the Fast and Furious franchise. “The movie has everything; action, fast cars and above all Paul Walker’s last and only appearance and that seems to have worked in favour of the movie’s box office. Previous movies in the franchise have done well in Pakistan but none of them have done this great,” said Adeel.

Read: Box Office: 'Furious 7' destroys records with $143.6 million debut

Although the coming few days might notice a decline in revenue, Rauf still believes that the film has done enough to merit a longer run in cinemas. “Mondays are generally slow days but I am still expecting a 50 per cent turnout today. Despite this I think that due to its successful opening we may run the film for two weeks compared to the one-week run we usually give to movies.”

Furious 7 released in cinemas on April 3, 2015 and has so far gone on to earn $384 million worldwide out of which $143.6 million have come from domestic audiences making it the highest opening weekend in April reported The Verge.