In our last edition, we had confidently predicted that ‘Pathaan’, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham, will have a huge opening and that on its first day, there’s a possibility that it can cross the record-breaking day one collections of the Hindi version of ‘KGF – Chapter 2’ (2022; Rs. 52.50 Crore), ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (2019; Rs. 53.50 Crore) and also day three collections of ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (Rs. 53.75 Crore). And that’s what happened. Despite being released on a non-holiday, it collected Rs. 55 Crore. The second day was a National Holiday on account of Republic Day and yet it collected a mind-boggling Rs. 68 Crore. If you count the earnings from the dubbed versions, the total is around Rs. 70 Crore. Friday was a working day and yet, the collections were high, at Rs. 37.50 Crore. On Saturday and Sunday, ‘Pathaan’ once again crossed the Rs. 50 Crore mark as it collected Rs. 51 Crore and Rs. 58 Crore respectively.
After such a historic weekend, ‘Pathaan’ remained strong on the weekdays. While it collected Rs. 25 crores on Monday, the Tuesday collections amounted to Rs. 21.50 Crore. On Wednesday, it collected around Rs. 17 Crore, as per early estimates. On Thursday, it is expected to collect around Rs. 14 Crore. This means that the first week’s collections of ‘Pathaan’ will be around Rs. 346 Crore. This is outstanding, to say the least. The previous record holder was ‘KGF – Chapter 2’ which had collected Rs. 250 Crore in week one. ‘Pathaan’ managed to go past this figure in just five days. ‘Pathaan’ is also the first Hindi film to cross the Rs. 300 Crore mark in just seven days.
All eyes are on its second Friday collections as that will give some idea about the film’s lifetime. ‘Dangal’ (2016) holds the record of being the biggest Hindi original film, as it collected Rs. 374.50 Crore. This record will be broken by Saturday and Sunday. It’ll also cruise past the ‘KGF – Chapter 2’s lifetime earnings of Rs. 427.29 Crore by Monday or Tuesday, or even before.
To put it simply, these collections are unprecedented. We are living in times when history is being created as the collections ‘Pathaan’ has put up are comparable to the biggest hits of Hindi cinema like ‘Mughal-E-Azam’ (1960), ‘Sholay’ (1975), ‘Hum Aapke Hain Koun’ (1994), ‘Gadar’ (2001), etc.
