Ranbir Kapoor has made his return with Shamshera, and its advanced tickets have been on sale for over a five–day period. In this action-packed entertainment venture, Kapoor stars alongside Sanjay Dutt and Vaani Kapoor. On Wednesday night, the movie’s bookings were only mediocre, having sold around 23,000 tickets at the three major theater chains – PVR, Inox and Cinepolis. It is estimated that it will likely sell between 60,000 to 65,000 tickets in total.
It was widely assumed that the film would outperform Kartik Aaryan’s Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 in ticket sales, having achieved a million sales, however, expectations quickly shifted to the more conservative 75,000 figure as the days went on. Current trends point to the possibility of it being below 65,000 by Thursday. As a reference point, Jug Jugg Jeeyo sold 57,000 tickets while Samrat Prithviraj sold 41,000 tickets. By Wednesday night, Samrat Prithviraj had made 14,000 in ticket sales.
A downside of Shamshera is its pricing; while it may surpass Jug Jugg Jeeyo’s sales at national cinemas, it won’t make as much money, since the latter’s tickets were roughly 40% more expensive. Pre–sales for Shamshera have been lower than expected, but with it being a mass movie, there’s still optimism that, if reviews are decent, the film will draw plenty of viewers when it releases.
The movie is expected to kick off its run with Rs. 12.5 to 14.5 crore on its opening day, rivaling Kartik Aaryan’s horror comedy to be the highest Bollywood opener of the year. The fate of the movie will be heavily dependent on the reaction from the audience – a good word of mouth could help push its opening day earnings to Rs. 15 to 16 crore, while bad talk might limit it to Rs. 12 crore. Interestingly, advance bookings have been lower than anticipated in the mass belts, but this segment of the viewers is expected to arrive on the day of release.
