Akshay Kumar breaks his own record

Rustom's first day collection of Rs 14.11 crore crosses Airlift's opening collection.

With Rustom, Akshay Kumar has once again re-instated his position as the most bankable star in Bollywood. The film, which released on August 12, made an opening collection of Rs 14.11 crore; it has crossed the first-day collections of his first hit of the year - Airlift which made Rs. 12.35 crore.

Interestingly, what's common to both films is that they are based on a well-documented true events - one, based against the backdrop of the Kuwaiti invasion by Iraq, and the other, a crime of passion famously known as the Nanavati murder case.

And as is the case with most of of the Khiladi Kumar's films, which grows stronger by word-of-mouth, the number of screens for Rustom, which opened in 2100 screens on Thursday, rose by another 200 screens by Friday; the screen count has now gone up to 2300. If that's not enough, the film has seen a jump in collections from Saturday onwards. 

Rustom is based on the murder that rocked the nation in 1959, which involved a naval officer killing his wife's paramour. The incident took place in Mumbai, then Bombay. Produced by Vipul K Rawal and directed by Tinu Suresh Desai, Akshay has been lauded for his role has the upright naval officer who commits a crime of passion. Ileana D'Cruz plays his wife and Arjan Bajwa, her lover.