Everything has come full circle. Prabhu Deva, the man who revived Salman Khan’s career with Wanted in 2009 right before this decade started, reunites with Salman Khan 10 years later. The blockbuster Dabangg franchise that started at the beginning of this decade (2010) is now going to have the third film in the franchise release at the end of this decade in 2019!
Dabangg released in 2010 and became a national rage. Everything from the songs to the dialogues clicked in a huge way with the audience, all because of one man: Salman Khan. As a matter of fact, Dabangg became the starting point for Salman’s dominance this decade, as he delivered another 8 blockbusters afterwards including Dabangg 2!
Will Dabangg 3 live upto the mammoth blockbuster expectations?
In terms of opening day collections, Dabangg 3 will be below previous Salman starrers Bharat (41.62 CR nett) and PRDP (39.32 CR nett), as both of them released on a national holiday. It will be below Sultan (36.59 CR nett) as well, which released on a partial holiday. However, it will cross the opening day of Tiger Zinda Hai (34.12 CR nett). Tiger Zinda Hai also released on a non-holiday, and had just one blockbuster in the franchise prior to its release, whereas Dabangg 3 has two blockbusters in its franchise before its release! Also, the footfalls and audience WOM (Word of Mouth) of Dabangg were greater than those of Ek Tha Tiger, so Dabangg has been the more popular franchise of the two to start with. Dabangg 3 will also beat the non-holiday opening record of Sanju, which collected 34.19CR nett.
In terms of lifetime collections, however, Dabangg 3 won’t cross the lifetime collections of Tiger Zinda Hai. Tiger Zinda Hai was carrying positive WOM from the audience, whereas I feel that Dabangg 3 will carry mixed WOM amongst the audience: the masses and single screen audience, who won’t mind the routine story (which is what it appears to be from the trailer), will lap up almost everything about the film, whereas the class/multiplex audience won’t really take a liking to the routine story and lack of novelty. Besides, Prabhu Deva as a director hasn’t really been hitting the bull’s-eye. His first two films, Wanted and Rowdy Rathore, were major hits at the box office, but out of his next four films, only R…Rajkumar managed “Average” verdict, whereas Ramaiya Vastavaiya, Action Jackson, and Singh is Bling all got a “Flop” verdict.
The WOM of Dabangg 3 won’t be negative like Race 3, however. Race 1 and 2 itself were just Hit and Semi-Hit films respectively, and then Salman Khan got added to that franchise with a different director as well so it had all the chances of going haywire. The Dabangg franchise on the other hand is established with two prior blockbusters and Salman Khan always having been the face of the franchise, and it will be easier to impress the fans of this franchise as the makers seem to have stuck to elements that worked for the prior two films. But yes, the change in director became a bit of a problem for Dabangg 2 as Arbaaz Khan stepped in and the film didn’t receive as much appreciation as Dabangg, and now it will be a problem again with Prabhu Deva stepping in with his shaky box office track record. Overall, I expect the audience WOM to be mixed at an all-India level for Dabangg 3.
The other big obstacle for Dabangg 3 comes in the form of Good Newwz which releases next week, and it will surely put a dent in the lifetime collections of Dabangg 3.
My Box Office Predictions for Dabangg 3:
Opening Day: 35 crore nett
Opening Weekend: 105 crore nett
Lifetime Collections: 205 crore nett
Overall Verdict: Hit
Overall, Dabangg 3 will prove to be another successful film for Salman Khan at the box office, but it will continue to raise the concern that his films have started struggling to cross the 300 crore nett mark in their lifetime collections despite his superstardom. Of course, not reaching that mark doesn’t have to do with any question related to his star power, but rather, questions related to the content of his films. Eventually, when the content continues to miss the mark, it will start showing a dent in his opening day collections and in his current superstardom! Dabangg 3 will be his fourth underperformer at the box office since 2017 after Tubelight, Race 3, and Bharat. But again, it will be shown that even his under-performing films collect more than the majority of films released from the Hindi film industry!
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