My Box Office Predictions for Dilwale

DILWALE has generated tremendous, unprecedented hype amongst moviegoers. The biggest reason being, of course, the return of the golden pair: Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol. Together, everything that they have touched has become gold for the audience. Here's the list of films they have done together: DILWALE DULHANIA LE JAYENGE, KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI, KABHI KHUSHI KABHI GHAM, MY NAME IS KHAN, KARAN ARJUN,and BAAZIGAR. Simply PHENOMENAL!

Furthermore, SRK re-unites with the hit machine, director Rohit Shetty. Rohit Shetty's only clean box office flop till date was ZAMEEN, his first directorial venture, released back in 2003 (starring Ajay Devgan and Abhishek Bachchan). Majority of his films as a director have gone on to be major box office successes, and he was the fourth director in Bollywood to have a film in the 100 crore club (GOLMAAL 3). More specifically, the last time Rohit Shetty and SRK came together as director-actor, they broke the 4 year lifetime collection record of 3 IDIOTS with CHENNAI EXPRESS, one of the biggest blockbusters in recent years!

It doesn't end there! Varun Dhawan, another hit machine, is also in this film. Making his debut in 2012 all of his films (STUDENT OF THE YEAR, MAIN TERA HERO, HUMPTY SHARMA KI DULHANIA, BADLAPUR and ABCD 2) have gone on to be box office successes!

One of the biggest directors in Bollywood. A dream star cast. Popular songs (Gerua and Janam Janam in particular seem to be huge hits with the public). A grand scale. Christmas release. Masala genre/entertainment for families. It can't get much bigger than this, can it?

BUT BUT BUT, not all is as well as it seems! There is a another major obstacle in the path of DILWALE: Sanjay Leela Bhansali's BAJIRAO MASTANI. That film also has a huge star cast and director (although comparatively, lesser in value than that of DILWALE). It also has a grand scale. Most importantly, it is releasing on the same day as DILWALE!

Let's cut the chase and get to the point right away. In the mind of Shah Rukh Khan, the whole idea of making DILWALE was to have a record-breaking blockbuster at the box office. It's rather obvious. Teaming with the director with whom he delivered the biggest grosser of Bollywood at the time (CHENNAI EXPRESS), teaming with the actress with whom he has delivered many Blockbusters with and is known as an icon couple with (Kajol) and that too, naming the film (DILWALE) based on their defining film together (DILWALE DULHANIA LE JAYENGE), being with the current youth sensation (Varun Dhawan), having a grand scale for the film. SRK must have keenly observed the numbers that DHOOM 3 and PK did during Christmas the last two years (both of which became the highest grossing film of Bollywood, each respectively when they released). He must've also felt that if he comes on Christmas with the director that he is capable of delivering a lifetime record grosser with (Rohit Shetty, as they did with Chennai Express) and all of the other elements mentioned in this paragraph already, that he can break the lifetime record of PK or to at least enter the 300 crore club.

Ideally, for SRK to enter the 300 crore club with Dilwale, the scenario should have been something like this, in my opinion: the film needed to be released solo (without the clash) on December 25th, Christmas Day. The record opening day would come (approx 45+ crores), and the steam would be built through news/social media coverage about how Dilwale has broken the opening day record. The general public would start to believe that this is a good film based on that, and the fact that Rohit Shetty films to get positive word of mouth typically from the public, the collections would have held strong and the film would have just needed a decent/good trend from it's record opening day (along with the holidays) to enter the 300 crore club.

Actually, I had recently about how SRK was planning to release DILWALE on December 25: BUT, apparently, some single screen exhibitors in Delhi and UP were going to screen BAJIRAO MASTANI for at least 2 weeks (the week of the 18th and 25th) instead of the stipulated one week, and as a result, SRK decided to release Dilwale on the 18th instead.

The clash with BAJIRAO MASTANI does cause problems for DILWALE, even though BM chose to release on Christmas first. As I said, the purpose of making DILWALE by SRK was to have that record-breaking box office blockbuster to take care of the box office aspect, and then he would have FAN and RAEES as his content-based films without as much focus on box office. With the clash, no record is going to be achieved by DILWALE. No opening records. 300 crore lifetime collection is also nearly impossible now, forget lifetime records!

The only thing that can be achieved by DILWALE now is for it to be a film that can entertain the audience during the holiday season. That's about it!

The first theatrical trailer of DILWALE received a mixed response: some loved it, while others weren't quite as enthusiastic as Rohit's handling of the SRK-Kajol pair and the display of weak comedy scenes shown in the trailer. However, the SRK-Kajol song promos afterwards, Gerua and Janam Janam (especially Gerua) received a tremendous response from viewers and really helped to increase the buzz for the film even more.

The opening day collection of DILWALE will be about as strong as it can be given the non-holiday factor and the clash. SRK's presence obviously ensures an opening that is a lot bigger than that of BAJIRAO MASTANI (in which Ranveer Singh is the lead and is obviously not at SRK's level yet in terms of stardom). From the news/reports I have read, it seems DILWALE will get around 2800 screens. BOI also said that multiplex screenings will be around 35% less than KICK and DHOOM 3. KICK also had an obstacle on the opening day in the form of pre-Eid period and did approx. 26 crores from that, and here with less screens+non-holiday+clash the opening of DILWALE is bound to be quite lower than a film like KICK.

I feel that the audience WOM (Word of Mouth) for DILWALE will be mixed. I recall Chennai Express having an Ormax Media WOM audience score of 60% from audience in cities of India, and in comparison, I feel Dilwale's score would be around 50%. Even though SRK is my favourite actor, I feel this way because there is no fresh concept in this film (unlike PK and BAJRANGI BHAIJAAN). It seems like a typical revenge story that will be predicable and have the typically happily-ever-after ending, without any drama of a nail-biting shocking climax or conclusion. Also, even though SRK's acting appears good in the promos, he does seem a bit stale now with the whole arms spread open style, his age appearing more clearly on his face, keeping a beard yet again after having it already in recent films like JAB TAK HAI JAAN and HAPPY NEW YEAR, hunt for revenge type story like in HAPPY NEW YEAR with even some of the dialogue sounding the same (SRK telling Kajol in the trailer "15 saal ,6 mahine" wala dialogue). The comedy from the trailer appears to be weak, and some of the scenes appear too fake from VFX. Having said all of the negatives, Rohit Shetty knows how to entertain the audience, especially the family audience with kids. As I've said, I'm expecting a mixed WOM for the film, especially amongst the multiplex audience, although females may really like this film due to the SRK-Kajol pairing. The single screen/mass audience will enjoy this film better as they will find flavour in the comedy, action, drama, songs...the entertainment package as a whole. Again, this can't be compared to BAJRANGI BHAIJAAN and PK, both films which had excellent WOM and were issue-based films and had the main character in each respective film on a journey to achieve some goals, whereas DILWALE is just a typical masala entertainer. There are said to be twists and turns in this film, but again being a Rohit Shetty masala film, how shocking can the twists really be, especially when the makers themselves have already released a happy wedding climax video?

Based on reports, it seems that the producers of DILWALE will be gaining lavish profits, but it seems that the film has been sold to distributors in India at a very high price (Bollywood Hungama at one point reported a total price of 130 crores to various individual distributors). If that amount holds true, DILWALE could see some distributors in India losing money, although the producers will have very healthy profits. Off the top of my head, the only major clash I can think of where one film ended up becoming a Blockbuster was GADAR (against LAGAAN) and maybe DIL/GHAYAL (both Sunny/Aamir clashes, interestingly). Such cases are rare where one film ends up becoming a Blockbuster, as can be seen.

Anyway, given the clash, I feel that the lifetime collection target for DILWALE is to have collections higher than SRK-Rohit's last film together, CHENNAI EXPRESS. That film's lifetime collection is the target for DILWALE, and I feel it will collect a bit higher than CHENNAI EXPRESS.

My Box Office Predictions for DILWALE:

Opening Day collection: 23 crores net

Opening Weekend: 70+ crores net

Lifetime Collections: 230 crores net

Overall Box Office Verdict: Super Hit

EDIT/UPDATE (Saturday, December 19, 2015): Guys Saturday collections are looking to be a similar range as Friday or lower, around the 20 crore range. Dabangg 2, released Christmas 2012, also had a 21 crore Friday and then Saturday around 19 crores. Similar trending could be the case, and it looks like Dilwale may finish with lifetime collections in the 150-160 crore range...

Dilwale budget is around 100 crores (without SRK remuneration) according to BOI. It's not fair to compare this clash with that of BB/Bahubali as both of those films had excellent WOM (which Dilwale probably won't have), and with BB releasing a week after Bahubali rather than a head-to-head clash like this. At the end of the dayl Bahubali was a South film, whereas here we have two major Bollywood films clashing which means that they will eat into each other's business more due to two choices to choose from amongst a similar market (Bollywood filmgoers).

So only 230cr lifetime 😒