Salman's 'Kick' is the second highest first-week grosser

Salman Khan's Kick has given the film industry and UTV Motion Pictures a reason to smile. The film will soon enter the Rs 200-crore club. The action romance entertainer completed its first week (July 25-July 31) with Rs 163.95 crore, making it the second highest first week collection after Dhoom 3 (Rs 185.5 crore).

As expected, Eid gave the movie's collection a fillip during the week when most movies begin to see a dip in earnings. The festival day collection stood at Rs 28.75 crore. The nine-day collection of the movie stood at Rs 183.94 crore with the movie collecting close to Rs 20 crore on the eighth and ninth day. Analysts believe Sunday will be another strong day for the film.

"A Salman release during Eid created a sort of mass hysteria around the film. Eid is always a highly competitive release window in many international territories, too, but the excitement around this movie internationally has been phenomenal. We released the movie four to five days ahead of Eid, so we worked towards a distribution and showcasing plan which gave us that push to make it a big week one," says Amrita Pandey, Vice-President and head, marketing and distribution, studios, Disney India.

It's not only in India that the movie has had a good run. The first week collection for the movie is Rs 50.49 crore. This is already higher than Khan's previous overseas collection record of Rs 42 crore for Ek Tha Tiger in 2012. Kick has given Khan the highest 'Week One' collections in territories like the Gulf, the UK and Pakistan. The movie also was Khan's best opener in North America with Rs 2.4 crore and continued its good run through the Eid week, finishing with Rs 10.53 crore for the week.

The movie's worldwide collection for the first nine days stands at Rs 234.43 crore.

Analysts believe the movie will show a dip in collections after the second weekend, but are confident it will cross the Rs 200-crore mark by 11th or 12th day. Khan's 2012 Independence Day release Ek Tha Tiger grossed about Rs 190 crore in its lifetime in India and is till date, his highest movie collection.

Pandey says, "The pre-Eid release strategy worked very well globally as well, as the collections peaked on the day of Eid. In most countries, Kick has been the highest grossing Salman Khan movie for Week One. In Pakistan, for instance, the movie has expanded to additional screens - to a record 62 screens (the highest for a Hindi film in Pakistan), the shows are going packed in spite of being scheduled as late as 12:30 in the night. Marketing and distribution overseas has always been one of our key strengths and Kick has proved to be yet another winner at the box office."