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Till about a month back, Udta Punjab was looking at an average opening day of 5-7 crore. The promo had seen mixed reactions and the content gave a sense of a niche film in the offering that would bring in select crowds. Then everything changed in the last fortnight. The censor controversy made the film much bigger than what it had seemed earlier on. Yes, there was a threat of piracy hitting it even before release but then that didn’t turn out to be a spanner in the plan as the film ended up seeing good footfalls from the audience.
This was evident from the fact that with 50% opening at an average (and even greater in Delhi NCR and Punjab), the Abhishek Chaubey film managed to bring around 10.05 crore on Friday. These are much greater than what was expected till two weeks back and in line with what was on the cards till two days back. For Shahid Kapoor, this is third good opening other than R… Rajkumar (10.1 crore) and Shaandaar (13.1 crore). For Diljit Dosanjh too, it is a good debut in the Hindi film circuit and it is actually his presence that is really happening the film up North.
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The film has seen largely good reviews coming its way and since the audience word of mouth too is leaning more towards positive, all that is needed for Udta Punjab is to stay consistent today and tomorrow so that 30 crore mark is crossed. As of now, the film appears to be in the safe zone.
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Dhanak was the other release of the week and though it did see some good reviews coming its way, poor marketing meant that hardly anyone was aware about its arrival. That reflected in its opening occupancy which was very low.
Junooniyat didn’t release this weekend and would now arrive next week.
Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources
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