Chennai Express catches steam

The movie may well be on the way to equal Salman Khan's Ek tha Tiger's opening collection of Rs 31 crore

After shattering the paid preview collections record held by 3 Idiots since 2009, Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone starrer Chennai Express may well be on the way to equal Salman Khan's Ek tha Tiger's opening collection of Rs 31 crore.

The Disney UTV and Red Chilies Entertainment co-production raked in Rs 6.75 crore in paid preview collections (3 Idiots made Rs 2.75 crore) and saw heavy footfalls on August 9. The collections are expected to sustain over the weekend and pundits peg the festive weekend collections to amount to nearly Rs 85 to 90 crore.

For the weekend (9 to 11 August), the movie has recorded nearly 90 per cent advance booking in theatres nationally. The film is seeing positive box office prospects overseas as well with reports claiming collection of Rs 3 crore plus for the paid preview.

Suniel Wadhwa, independant distributor and box office analyst says, “SRK's innovative marketing strategy like non-stop city tour, integration with reality and serials, brand promotions and over and above high quality content with masala entertainment which makes universal appeal will smashe all records for opening long extended weekend. The opening over the extended weekend will equal or may even surpass lifetime business of Rohit Shetty's Golmaal 1(Rs 28 Cr) and Golmaal 2 ( Rs 58 Cr) both put together. The life time business will be equal or close to the Golmaal series collection of Rs 194 crore.”(Golmaal 3 –raked in Rs 108 crore.)

The film has been released across 3700+ screens in India and nearly 750 screens overseas. It has been released in Morocco, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Peru and Israel apart from North America across (195 screens), UK (175 screens), Middle East (55 screens) and Australia (30 screens) on the same day as India. It is available in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, German, Hebrew, Dutch, Turkish and Malay apart from Hindi and has been subtitled for the international markets.

The challenge though will be sustaining the impetus into the coming week since the movie doesnt necessarily tick all the boxes for the viewer. For one thing, the lack of sub-titles in the movie renders a blow to the viewers' experience. Set in southern India, the movie has quite a few dialogues in Tamil and the absence of subtitles leave the viewers flustered after a point in time. Having said that, the film has picked up very well in the west and south regions. Even markets like Andhra Pradesh (280 screens) and Tamil Nadu are showing healthy outlook for the weekend.

In-movie branding is nothing new in Bollywood, but with Chennai Express, the audience get a taste of in your face promotion as protagonist Khan goes on to extol the features and price of a Nokia smartphone in detail.

The movie has close to 18 brand associations across categories like food and beverage, mobile handset and fast moving consumer goods. These include Nokia, Emami, McDonalds, Western Union, Reliance Digital, Lux Soaps, Videocon, Nerolac, Palam Sarees and Baskin Robins among others. The movie is said to have raked in Rs 30 crore from these tie-ups.

The satellite rights for the movie also fetched a handsome price at Rs 40 crore, bought by Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited's new Hindi movie channel & pictures.