Tiger Zinda Hai has a Rs 150-cr opening weekend

The film smashed the record for the highest collection by a Bollywood film in a single day with Rs 45.53 cr collected on Sunday

With Rs 151 crore under its belt in the first four days, Tiger Zinda Hai has lent some festive cheer to Bollywood after a fairly lacklustre year. The Salman Khan-Katrina Kair starring action flick released on December 22 and thanks to positive word of the mouth and generally favourable reviews, it took full advantage of the long weekend. 

The loose sequel to 2012’s Ek Tha Tiger, Tiger Zinda Hai is directed by Ali Abbas Zafar (who also directed 2016’s hit Sultan) and co-stars Paresh Rawal, Sajjad Delafrooz and Angad Bedi in supporting roles. The film is produced and distributed by Yash Raj Films (YRF) and cost an estimated Rs 150 crore to make, market and distribute. 

Tiger Zinda Hai started its box office campaign with an impressive Rs 33.75 crore on its first day, despite a ban in certain parts of Rajasthan. Trade pundits pegged the film’s four-day collection north of Rs 120 crore, but at Rs 151 crore over the extended Christmas weekend, it has surpassed expectations. The film collected Rs 36.5 crore on Monday, which was a holiday in school, colleges and many workplaces on account of Christmas. 

Source: Industry sources

However, its biggest collection day was Sunday when it raked in Rs 45.53 crore. This sets the record for the highest collection by a Bollywood film in a day (not including Hindi dubs of films in other languages), beating Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo (Rs 39.5 crore). Tiger Zinda Hai fell short of breaking Baahubali 2: The Conclusion’s (Hindi dub version) single day collection record though (Rs 46.5 crore on the film’s first Sunday).

While the positive response to the film and the long weekend has helped the film rake in the moolah, the ticket prices at multiplexes have also been raised by up to Rs 50. “Festive weekends usually do see a rise in ticket rates and this time is nothing out of the ordinary. However, given the footfalls the film has been able to attract, the effect of the raised prices is showing in the total collections,” says a distributor. 

At Rs 150 crore, the film needs to make a total of Rs 300 crore or more at the box office to start booking profits (since nearly 50 per cent of the net collections are distributor share). However, with its ancillary revenues pumping in, the film should have no trouble breaking even and making profits even with an escalated cost. The film has already made Rs 55 crore (approx.) in the overseas market. YRF also has a deal with Amazon Prime for streaming rights of the film and satellite rights are expected to fetch a good amount as well. Since YRF released the music to the film under its own label, there is no money to be made from the sale of music rights, but the studio would earn a royalty for the music playing on multiple platforms on digital, TV and radio. 

With this, Salman Khan also fortifies his position among the bankable Bollywood stars once again. Earlier this year, audiences’ reaction to Tubelight was largely negative and resulted in the film fizzling out at the box office. It barely crossed the Rs 120-crore mark, a feat which almost every Salman Khan film has managed to achieve since 2014. 

According to the latest Forbes top 100 Celebrities (India) report, Salman Khan holds the proficiency for the most successful openings at the box office over the past six years. According to the report, his films have made an average of Rs 95.26 crore (over 7 films) over the past six years. He is followed by Shah Rukh Khan (Rs 64.92 over 9 films) and Akshay Kumar (Rs 37.25 crore over 17 films).