My Box Office Predictions for Hero

Opening Weekend: 20+ crores net

Lifetime Collections: 45+ crores net

Overall Box Office Verdict: Semi Hit

This film will be the HEROPANTI of 2015, in terms of star kids making a successful box office debut. HERO has many similarities with HEROPANTI: the titles of the two films are similar, star kids in both films, popular song to attract the audience to the cinema halls (HEROPANTI had Whistle Baja song and HERO has Main Hoon Hero Tera). Also, both films had a director with a poor resume: HEROPANTI's director Sabbir Khan first directed KAMBAKHT ISHQ which garnered negative feedback from people, and HERO's director Nikhil Advani has had a directorial career filled with flop films (his first film, KAL HO NA HO, remains his only box office hit till date, which makes one really wonder if it was Karan Johar who directed that film all along as Nikhil has never had a box office success after that!)

The only difference between HERO and HEROPANTI is that the latter had 2 open weeks at the box office before the next major release (HOLIDAY released 2 weeks after the release of HEROPANTI) whereas HERO only has one open week (KATTI BATTI releases next week). This may result in HERO having slightly lower lifetime collections than HEROPANTI.

HERO will do fairly well at the box office though, despite having a director who is known to go wrong at the box office. The film will find more appreciation amongst the mass audience than the class audience.

EDIT: I forgot to write another similarity between HERO and HEROPANTI: the Jackie Shroff factor. HERO is a remake of Shroff's 1983 film, and HEROPANTI saw the debut of Shroff's son, Tiger.

Yeah, the budget is still unconfirmed it seems. We will just have to wait for an official source to say it. The higher budget kinda makes me want to lower the box office verdict of the film in my prediction, but I don't like changing my prediction for the verdict after having written it, so I think I shall leave it as is...