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Kabir Khan's last film BAJRANGI BHAIJAAN took a 27 crore opening with Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor. PHANTOM has Kabir Khan as a director again, one of the most popular female leads in the industry Katrina Kaif (similar to Kareena Kapoor). BAJRANGI BHAIJAAN before release had popular songs, whereas PHANTOM has the popular Afghan Jalebi song. The theme of both films revolve around India/Pakistan. The main difference between the two films is the star power of the two male leads: Salman Khan (arguably the biggest star in the industry today) and Saif Ali Khan (his last film HAPPY ENDING took a disastrous 3.75 crore opening). Saif Ali Khan's star power is about a quarter of Salman's, and given the fact that the other things between the two films are fairly equal, it will be Saif's lack of star power at the moment that will make the main difference in the opening day collection as PHANTOM's opening day collection will about a quarter of BAJRANGI BHAIJAAN's opening day collection (using logic of Saif having a quarter of the star power right now that Salman has). That make the opening day collection of PHANTOM around 7 crores net, but adding in the fact that PHANTOM has been in the news a lot due to the controversies and because of Kabir Khan having even more crowd-pull now as a director after the earth-shattering success of BAJRANGI BHAIJAAN, I will add another crore and predict the opening day collection to be 8 crores net.
The film's collections will get benefit from Raksha Bandhan day on Saturday.
I just read a headline of a report a while ago that the opening of PHANTOM has started slow, but I feel that the collections will pick up in the evening/night shows as the positive word of mouth (which I'm sure there will be) starts kicking in.There will likely be positive WOM for PHANTOM because Kabir Khan's last film as a director BAJRANGI BHAIJAAN (also based on India-Pak theme) had outstanding WOM. Also, the censor people who watched the film reportedly gave an applause for the film after watching. The reviews so far for the film have been positive as well. I feel that the positive WOM will be more so amongst the multiplex audience (multiplex audience would like the style of Saif and Katrina more than the mass audience as these two stars are more urban, English-speaking type of stars).
There is competition from films in the coming weeks such as WELCOME BACK (releasing next week), HERO, and KATTI BATTI, but I feel that the strong WOM that PHANTOM will have (mostly amongst the multiplex audience) will give PHANTOM a strong run at the box office despite the competition.
This film will mark the comeback of Saif Ali Khan as a star. Not sure why people feel Katrina needs to make a comeback, as her last film BANG BANG (although an under performer) was still one of the biggest grossers of last year and some of her other recent films before that (DHOOM 3 and EK THA TIGER) are amongst the biggest Blockbusters so far this decade (2010-present).
My Box Office Predictions for PHANTOM:
Opening Day: 8 crores net
Opening Weekend: 30+ crores net
Lifetime Collections: 90+ crores net
Overall Box Office Verdict: Hit
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