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Box Office: Puneeth Rajkumar's James takes Industry Best Opening day in Karnataka
As was expected, the final motion picture starring the late superstar Puneeth Rajkumar took the record for the industry-best opening in Karnataka. Released on around 430 theatres across the state, James grossed Rs. 14-15 crores approx on Thursday, which is miles ahead of the previous record-holder KGF Chapter 1. The overall opening day in the state still lies with Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, which grossed Rs. 16.50 crores including the paid previews, but that was helped by insanely high ticket prices and James is well ahead in terms of tickets sold.
The film set a new high for Sandalwood at almost every centre in the state. In the biggest of them, Bengaluru, it grossed Rs. 6 crores approx screening over 900 shows in the city, being ahead of next best film by almost 60 per cent. This was the first time a Sandalwood film went over Rs. 4 crores in the city. In Mysuru the film was sold out for the day, playing over 100 shows, grossing Rs. 70 lakhs. This was the scenario at almost every other place in the state.
The start of the film is historic and on the strength of these numbers for day one, a weekend record or maybe even a week record may come. There will be competition from RRR next week so it's early to say anything on where the film can go in full run. The film has emotions of millions attached to it, being the last movie of the superstar who left us in October last year, and that makes it even more unpredictable.
The box office tracking for Kannada movies is rather improper as the numbers that come out are inconsistent. In the case of other industries, the margin of error of numbers we report at the time of release is very low and there are actuals to cross-check sooner or later. Here, for this movie or Sandalwood in general, there are no actuals to look at, so the margin of error is a bit high. Due to this, not much attention was paid to the industry’s box office in past but going forward that is going to change somewhat. Though not as high as is the case with Bollywood or Tollywood or even Kollywood, there are numbers at theatre and centre level to work with. Even if not perfect, it will at least be closer to reality.
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