SS Rajamouli’s highly-anticipated period film RRR arrives in cinemas today, Friday. The magnum opus brings together two of Telugu cinema’s biggest stars — Jr NTR and Ram Charan. With fans eager to see both the iconic actors together, they are equally excited to see what Rajamouli has up his sleeve this time around. The director is rolling out a film five years after he released Baahubali 2. With expectations at peak, experts explain that RRR might witness a massive opening day box office collection.
Trade analyst Ramesh Bala, speaking with News18, has pegged the box office opening at Rs 200 to Rs 250 crores worldwide. He notes that while the highest contributions towards the opening day box office collections will undeniably come from the Telugu box office, the overseas collections will propel the box office collection.
“In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana alone, we are expecting an opening of Rs 100 crore gross. The ticket prices are hiked with fan shows costing between Rs 500 and Rs 1000. Even Governments of both states have permitted theatres to hike ticket rates for shows in multiplexes and single screens with ticket costs crossing Rs 400. About 95 percent of the theatres in the states are playing RRR this weekend. So Rs 100 to 110 crores is expected on RRR’s opening day,” says Ramesh Bala.
He also adds, “Overseas is going to be massive, with the US leading the day with premieres and day 1 collections. A collection of USD 5 million to USD 8 million is expected. If other country collections are also included, the movie is set to record a USD 10 million collection from the overseas market.”
While RRR seems to be kicking off on an impressive note in the Telugu-speaking states, Ramesh points out that the advance booking for other states hasn’t been great. “It will depend on word of mouth I think. But it will still do decent business,” he says. Karnataka is expected to collect Rs 10 to Rs 15 crores opening, Tamil Nadu could register a collection of Rs 10 crore and Kerala is set for a Rs 4 crore opening box office collection for RRR.
RRR hasn’t recorded a great advance booking in Hindi as well. Speaking about film producer and film business expert Girish Johar tells us, “The hype for RRR is good but not excellent. We need to understand that the film is not topping any North-relatable stars. Everyone knows Ajay Devgn and Alia Bhatt have special roles so whatever advances we are having right now is based on SS Rajamuoli’s name. The film could draw Rs 13 to Rs 15 crores but the word of mouth could influence the opening numbers. The box office collection could rise if the word of mouth is good but if the word of mouth isn’t good, it could fall as well.”
RRR is tracking a much lower opening box office collection expectation as compared to SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali 2. The movie recorded a massive Rs 40 crore opening at the time, breaking a few records as well. Asked what changed this time around, Girish explains, “Times have changed. That was a different film altogether, the market scenarios were completely different. RRR is coming post-Covid so there are a lot of factors that have changed and are at play also right now. Having said that, I think this is a goodish start.”
