Raees review|Box office thread 4 - DT Note Pg 134 - Page 75

Rahul Dholakia's crime drama Raees has managed to achieve yet another milestone after its second weekend in spite of the reducing margin between its box office collection and that of Sanjay Gupta's revenge drama Kaabil.

India Today reports that Raees has crossed the coveted Rs 275 crore mark at the global box office. Its domestic collection stands at Rs 147.46 crore and the overseas collection over Rs 125 crore, as on Sunday, 5 February. The film recorded Rs 8.5 crore and approximately Rs 10 crore on Saturday and Sunday respectively.

The same report suggests that Kaabil garnered Rs 9.22 and Rs 11.88 crore on Saturday and Sunday respectively, at the domestic box office. Thus, its total domestic collection stands at Rs 118.14 crore. After Raees, it became the second film of 2017 to make it to the celebrated Rs 100 crore club, on Saturday.

According to the list of Rs 100 crore club films by Koimoi.com, this is Hrithik's fourth film to make it to the coveted club. His past films that achieved the feat were Rakesh's Krrish 3, Siddharth Anand's Bang Bang and Karan Malhotra's Agneepath. Also, Kaabil is a clear superhit now that it has managed to earn more than twice its budget of Rs 50 crore.

Kaabil, starring Hrithik Roshan and Yami Gautam in lead roles, released in Pakistan last week. In the process, it became the first Indian film to be screened in Pakistan after the country lifted the ban on import of Hindi films. Kaabil received a tremendous response in Pakistan and is expected to continue the trajectory on Friday when it releases in the rest of Pakistan.

On the other hand, Raees, which stars Shah Rukh Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Pakistani actor Mahira Khan, will release a week after Kaabil. Thus, this will give Kaabil quite an edge over Raees in its box office collection in Pakistan.

Boys and girls new song from Raees coming up in a bit. Didn't make it to the film but will make it to ur heart I hope. #RAEES275CRWORLDWIDE

" Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) February 5, 2017

As the icing on the cake, the producer of Kaabil, Rakesh Roshan tweeted that Kaabil got 200 more screens last Friday as a consequence of the film recording a better progress at the domestic box office than Raees. Rakesh had expressed his disappointment in film distributors when he discovered that Kaabil and Raees have been allotted screens in the ratio of 40:60, as opposed to the deal he had struck of 50:50.

In view of the great response KAABIL is receiving across, exhibitors are adding up 200 PLUS new cinemas in the 2nd week.#Kaabil@iHrithik

" Rakesh Roshan (@RakeshRoshan_N) February 2, 2017

Now that Kaabil has more reasons to celebrate, it should bank on the opportunities and buck up in its competition against Raees.

The lackluster box office performance, coupled with the critical flak, of Stanley Tong's Indo-Chinese action comedy adventure Kung Fu Yoga is sure to help both Kaabil and Raees increase their domestic business until Subhash Kapoor's courtroom drama Jolly LLB 2, starring Akshay Kumar, hits the theatres this Friday on 10 February.