Advance Booking: Laal Singh Chaddha & Raksha Bandhan heavily depend on spot bookings for a start at box office
Here's a detailed box office report on the advance booking status of the two August 11 releases - the Aamir Khan starrer Laal Singh Chaddha and Akshay Kumar fronted Raksha Bandhan.
The team of Laal Singh Chaddha opened their advance bookings on Friday and it isn’t exactly a bright picture for the team of this Aamir Khan film. The film is quite low on the advance booking front as the three national chains – PVR, Inox and Cinepolis – are headed to end with a ticket sale of in the range of 53,000 by end of Wednesday. To put things in perspective, the June 2022 release, Jug Jugg Jeeyo had sold 57,000 tickets at the national chains, whereas the May 2022 release, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 topped the list with 1.03 Lakh tickets in the three chains. As of Wednesday evening, the total sale of Laal Singh Chaddha at the three chains stands at approx. 45,000.
The advances are not upto the mark and the entire game of Laal Singh Chaddha will depend on the spot bookings. The holiday factor should escalate the film biz by 25 to 30 percent, but, given the fact that Aamir Khan returns to the screen after 4 long years, the response should have been much better. It’s probably a case of a trailer gone wrong, which played a role in reducing the audience interest for the film. It’s difficult to predict the opening day figure of Laal Singh Chaddha at the moment, but, it is poised to be below even the conservative expectation of the industry, until and unless there is a miraculous turnaround from the spot booking audience.
The second release of the day, Raksha Bandhan, too doesn’t have the momentum in it’s advance booking. The film is looking to close with an overall sale of 35,000 in the three national chains, with an outside chance of hitting the 37,000 mark. The advance total at the three chains will be marginally lower than Akshay Kumar’s last release, Samrat Prithviraj (41,000). The positive for Raksha Bandhan is in the fact that it is released on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan and this might lead to better walk-ins in the mass belts, but still, the result so far is much below the conversative expectations. As of Wednesday evening, the total sale of Raksha Bandhan at the three chains is around 23,000.
Much like Laal Singh Chaddha, the opening day fate of Raksha Bandhan too will depend on spot bookings. If the spots for both the films aren’t upto the mark, the industry might be in for a shocker on Thursday. The audience report too will play a big role on how the films fare in the longer run. There are ample of holiday’s in the coming week and if the audience report is indeed good, both Laal Singh Chaddha and Raksha Bandhan can make up for the shortfall of the opening day. A good audience talk is a must for both the releases, as word of mouth will play a huge role on their journey ahead. There gap between the opening day of Laal Singh Chaddha and Raksha Bandhan will be much lower than expected. The hope is that both films are accepted with open arms by the audience as that would lead to superlative trend for coming few days, as the success of both the releases is very important for the Hindi Film Industry.
While Laal Singh Chaddha has a lead in the national chain, the small multiplexes are seeing Raksha Bandhan in the lead. So well, it’s wait and wait for now as a lot depends on how the audience receives the two films.
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