Aamir Khan is pretty much competing with himself when it comes to delivering All Time Blockbusters and that too in record time. Two years back, he had opened the 300 Crore Club with PK which went on to nett 339.50 crore. Now with Dangal, he has managed to surpass that feat as well by collecting 345.30 crore already. With 31.79 crore more coming over the third weekend, it has now emerged at the top of the list and gone past PK already. This isn’t all as it has managed this feat in 17 days while still in the running at almost all credible theaters screening Hindi films across the country.
There is another interesting factoid attached to the film. With 345.30 crore in 17 days, the film has also managed an average of 20 crore plus per day, something that is truly unbelievable. That’s because in entire 2016, just three films had an opening day of over 20 crore [Sultan – 36.54 crore, Dangal – 29.78 crore, M.S. Dhoni – The Untold Story – 21.3 crore] and here Dangal has managed this as an average for its entire run so far!
Trending of this Nitesh Tiwari directed film pretty much indicates that a lifetime run of around 375 crore is a definite possibility. This also opens up the doors of the next big record to be scored by a film in the near future, that of opening the 400 Crore Club. All eyes would now be on Aamir Khan’s next Thugs of Hindostan that releases on 7th November 2018. The film is still almost two years away and by that time there would be a substantial increase in number of screens as well.
Currently, the maximum that a film has stretched is towards the 5000 screens mark. In fact Dangal opened much lesser at 4300 screens. Since Thugs of Hindostan also stars Amitabh Bachchan, has Yash Raj Films backing it and has Vijay Krishna Acharya (who gave a 280.25 crore All Time Blockbuster with Aamir Khan), a release in over 5500 screens is guaranteed. Now that should well open the floodgates for the film and rest assured, if Thugs of Hindostan turns out to be as good an entertainer as any other Aamir Khan film since the arrival of 3 Idiots, an entry in the 400 Crore Club is not really far away.
The question though is – Just like every major club so far, be it the 100 Crore Club [Ghajini], 200 Crore Club [3 Idiots] or 300 Crore Club [PK], will Bollywood have to rely on Aamir Khan again for the 400 Crore Club [Thugs of Hindostan]? Or will there be another actor who would be taking the plunge as well? It is up to them to rise and shine. There are quite a few major releases in 2017 and all eyes are on whether this record would be possible in months to come before Aamir strikes again on Diwali 2018.
Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources
