Nitesh Tiwari’s wrestling biopic Dangal is well on its way to the Rs 300 crore club. Though it has already garnered over Rs 300 crore worldwide, its domestic collection stands at a formidable Rs 239.01 crore.
Dangal surpassed the box-office collection of fellow sports biopic Neeraj Pandey’s MS Dhoni: The Untold Story on its fifth day since the release on 23 December. However, it had a long way to go before it could become the highest grosser of 2016 as another film based on wrestling, Ali Abbas Zafar’s Sultan had raked in Rs 300.45 at the domestic box-office.
The progress of Dangal has been commendable since then as it continued to mint a good amount of money throughout the week as there was no competition from Hindi cinema this past weekend. The icing on the cake was the holiday season which turned out to be in the favour of the producer and lead actor of the film, Aamir Khan, who has a track record of record-breaking successes on the Christmas weekend.
The other films that made it to the Rs 100 crore club in 2016 included three offerings by Akshay Kumar in Raja Krishna Menon’s period drama Airlift, Tinu Suresh Desai’s period thriller Rustom and Sajid-Farhad’s comedy ensemble Houseful 3.
Apart from Kumar’s films, Karan Johar’s romantic drama Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and its Diwali release rival Ajay Devgn’s action entertainer Shivaay also managed to cross the coveted Rs 100 crore mark. However, Dangal has seen a much rapid growth at the box-office when compared to these five films.
The Indian Express reports that Dangal released in 4,300 screens within India and in 1,000 screens overseas. It got the widest release in the Middle East, North America, the United Kingdom and Australia.
As far as the domestic space is concerned, trade analyst Taran Adarsh and other pundits have estimated that Dangal has touched the Rs 250 crore mark by Sunday. While there might be a lull now, owing to the culmination of the holiday season, the film may continue to do well because of the word of mouth and lack of competition from Hindi cinema this weekend.
The only offering by Hindi cinema this Friday, on 6 January, will be Vishal Mishra’s comedy Coffee with D starring Sunil Grover and Anjana Sukhani in the lead roles. No big film will collide with Dangal till the next weekend when Shaad Ali’s romantic comedy Ok Jaanu hits the theaters on 13 January.
Going by its current trajectory at the box office, it will not be much of a surprise if Dangal goes on to outdo Sultan at the box-office and in turn, become the highest grosser of 2016.
