JOIN OUR WHATSAPP CHANNEL
Chup Box Office Preview: Sunny Deol and Dulquer Salmaan starrer runtime, screen count & opening day
On the footfall front, Chup has surpassed the advance booking of films like Gangubai, Jug Jugg Jeeyo and Laal Singh Chaddha and will be challenging Bhool Bhualiyaa 2 admits in national chains. Details
Sunny Deol and Dulquer Salmaan team up for the first time on R Balki’s Chup: Revenge of The Artist. The film is gearing up for a release on September 23 across the country and has been certified A – Adults Only by the Central Board of Film Certification. The approved run time of the film is 2 hour and 15 minutes (135 minutes). Chup is seeing a nationwide release by Pen Marudhar on National Cinema Day.
As a part of celebrations, the viewers can watch the film for a nominal sum of Rs 75 only throughout the day. The initial plan of the team was to go ahead with a platform release on 600 screens, but the response to advance booking on Monday was so encouraging that on public demand the screen count at present stands in the north of 800 in India. Chup is springing a pleasant surprise as far as advance booking is concerned and the affordable pricing strategy is doing wonders for the film on the footfall front.
As of Wednesday 4.30 pm, Chup has sold approximately 63,000 tickets in the three national chains – PVR, Inox, and Cinepolis – thereby surpassing the overall advance booking of bigger star-cast films like Jug Jugg Jeeyo (57k), Gangubai (56K), Shamshera (46K), Samrat Prithviraj (41K) and Raksha Bandhan (34K). In-fact, by Wednesday at 5 pm, Chup has also surpassed the overall advance booking of Laal Singh Chaddha (63K) on the admit i.e. footfall front, though the collections of the film will be lower than all the aforementioned films. At Inox, the film has sold around 20,000 tickets, whereas Cinepolis stands at 13,000 tickets. PVR leads the roast with 30,000 tickets.
In-fact, Chup stands a strong chance of matching the footfalls of Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (1.03 Lakh) at the three national chains through its advance booking by Thursday midnight. On the day of release, Chup will face the capacity issue and we anticipate the distributors to add early morning shows for Friday soon. The opening of Chup largely benefitted from the pricing strategy and seeing this response, it would be a wise move from the makers and exhibitors to retain the same rate for the opening weekend. The presence of Sunny Deol and Dulquer Salmaan has ensured face value for the film to spike some excitement and the ticket rates are just that added incentive to drive the audience to the big screen on day one.
As far as opening day biz is concerned, Chup will be targetting a first day in the north of Rs 2.5 crore at worst and will also have a shot of clocking the Rs 3 crore mark depending on how much capacity it has. The more the capacity, the higher will be the biz, as, after a point of time, Chup might just face capacity issues at some properties. A phenomenon of tickets at such affordable rates is happening for the film time and hence the opening day biz will be a case study for the entire industry. Who knows, there are enough screens and enough capacity for a film to clock even Rs 4 crore or Rs 5 crore on the first day with tickets at Rs 75. But a conservative prediction will be around Rs 2.50 crore, which again would be a very good result for a film like Chup. Before a section comes out with the theory that higher rates would have pushed the number to Rs 5 crore at the same footfalls, we need to set the things straight on record that the numbers are coming due to lower rates and higher rates would have pushed back the audience from venturing the cinema halls.
The audience seems to be giving the film a shot at affordable rates, and this seems to be the way forward to revive the cinema-going culture in India for small and mid-sized films. Probably the multiplexes can cap the rates at Rs 150 throughout the day for the relatively smaller films and go all out with super blockbuster pricing for the event tentpole films. If the talk of Chup is on the positive side, the film could well spring a surprise by emerging the much-needed small/midsized success for the industry. Friday could change the syntax of business for the Hindi Film Industry and could be the much-needed light at the end of the tunnel for nonevent films in the post-pandemic world. Chup is hopefully just the beginning.
Latest Articles
