Akshay Kumar‘s Sooryavanshi has not only revived theatres post the pandemic lull, but also become the actor’s biggest opening weekend earner, collecting over Rs 77 crore (net) and beating the previous best of Mission Mangal by 10 crore.
According to a report in Box Office India, this is also the first time that a Kumar-starrer has made over 30 crore (net) in the Mumbai circuit in its opening weekend.
Previously, the actor’s other films like Mission Mangal, Good Newwz, 2.0, and a few others had all earned over Rs 50 crores during the first weekend. Sooryavanshi has taken the first position on this list now.
Another BOI report states that the Rohit Shetty directorial earned around Rs 26 crores on Friday and Rs 24 and 27 crores on the following days.
According to Anupam Reddy, an executive committee member of the Telangana State Film Chamber of Commerce and owner of Sudha Multiplex in Hyderabad, Sooryavanshi has seen the best performance among all films released post the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. “All the evening and night shows during the weekend were full. The afternoon shows saw around 70-80% occupancy,” Reddy told Silverscreen India.
While some theatres in Kolkata have not screened the film, Sunit Singh, owner of Paradise Cinema, said, from what he has gathered, the film performed very well during the weekend.
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According to BOI, Sooryavanshi has seen very good collections overseas too with numbers expected to be around $3 million (around Rs 22.50 crore). The worldwide numbers will thus be around Rs 115 crores, which makes this the highest opener for Kumar worldwide as well.
Currently, as many as eight states in India have allowed theatres to operate at full capacity, namely Rajasthan, Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Gujarat, Delhi NCR, and Uttar Pradesh. Meanwhile, theatres in Maharashtra are only operating at 50% capacity, while those in West Bengal are running at 70% occupancy.