My Box Office Predictions for M.S. Dhoni - The Untold Story

It is common knowledge that there are two forms of entertainment that are extremely popular in India: cricket and movies. When you combine them for a film based on the life of the popular Captain of India, the cricket superstar, M.S. Dhoni, the hype is bound to be huge. On top of that, there is the theatrical trailer of this film, which received a fantastic response.

Here's something that might shock those of you who don't know yet: M.S. DHONI -THE UNTOLD STORY is seeing the biggest release in 2016. Approx. 5000 screens in India (4500 for Hindi version, 500 for Tamil+Telegu versions). Yes, even more screens overall than Salman Khan's big Blockbuster, SULTAN! With that being said, since the duration of the film is 3.10 hours, the number of shows will be lesser compared to other big films with smaller runtimes (I read all of this information from Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama).

M.S. DHONI -THE UNTOLD STORY has a lot of buzz and more screens than SULTAN, but Salman Khan's star power is on a different level altogether. Therefore, I feel that the opening of M.S. DHONI -THE UNTOLD STORY will be approximately half that of SULTAN (36 crores) at approximately 18 crores. Factor in the huge demand for the film in the South as well with the Tamil/Telegu versions, and overall the film can collect around the 20 crore mark on it's opening day, which will be a fantastic figure for a film starring Sushant Singh Rajput (who is not a superstar) and with no major holiday either, mostly just the crowd-pulling factor of M.S. Dhoni! Others such as Joginder Tuteja have mentioned the possibility of a 20 crore opening day. On the other hand, Sushant's last film DETECTIVE BYOMKESH BAKSHI did approximately 4 crores on its opening day. Add 10 crores to that figure (given the hype), and another 2 crores for Tamil+Telegu versions, it works out to be 16 crores. In my dilemma of choosing between 16 and 20 crores, I will go with middle number for the opening day: 18 crores.

The film is directed by Neeraj Pandey, who's films as a director tend to have very good WOM. If we look at his last two films, SPECIAL 26 and BABY, both films multiplied their opening day by approximately 10. However, those two films had a smaller audience (7 and 9 crores respectively) targeting the multiplex audience, and in this case, there will be more audience from mass/small centres as well. Because this film is looking more of a multiplex type film, the audience in smaller centers may not appreciate the film as much, but I do believe that the WOM (Word of Mouth) amongst the multiplex/big city audience will be excellent and will make the film a huge grosser. The highest grosser in India till now that wasn't a typical commercial film and had no big stars with no big holiday period is THE JUNGLE BOOK, which collected 181.75 crores after its release in April earlier this year. I expect this film to collect a similar amount, and multiply it's opening day by 10 like Neeraj's other films.

BARFI in September 2012 achieved the unthinkable by collecting 100 crores for a niche film. Now in September 2016, I feel that M.S. DHONI - THE UNTOLD STORY could also do the unthinkable for a multiplex-type film with Sushant Singh Rajput (a non-superstar) as the lead star by collecting 180+ crores. BHAAG MILKHA BHAAG, another sports film based on a sports star, also had a 3 hour+ run time and had great WOM to collect more than 100 crores, which was huge for its time for that type of film.

My Box Office Predictions for M.S. DHONI - THE UNTOLD STORY (Hindi, Tamil, and Telegu versions):

Opening Day: 18 crores net

Opening Weekend: 60+ crores net

Lifetime Collections: 180 crores net

Overall Box Office Verdict: Blockbuster