One week later: My thoughts on TIGER 3's BOX OFFICE!

First of all, I'll address the elephant in the room: my box office prediction for Tiger 3.

Yes, my prediction ended up being a DISASTER of EPIC PROPORTIONS. I had predicted Tiger 3 would collect 600 cr nett in India (Hindi version) lifetime collections, and the reality today is that the film may struggle to collect even HALF of that.

This prediction of mine was as big of a disaster as the time I had predicted in 2018 that Zero would collect 360 cr nett Lifetime, and the actual lifetime ended up being 80 crores.

The similarity in both predictions of mine that went absolutely haywire is that I put too much blind faith in the makers of each respective film, Zero and Tiger 3.

In the case of Zero, I remember listening to an interview with Anand Rai (who was doing very well at the box office prior to Zero). He said in the interview "agar film achi hai, toh 300 crore hai. From where I stand, it's a very good film". I believed him, and gave my prediction.

In the case of Tiger 3, I had blind faith in Aditya Chopra. Pathaan, another film in the spy universe, collected 500 cr nett just earlier this year, breaking all box office records. I had blind faith in what Aditya Chopra was doing here with this universe.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

People can throw all kinds of excuses out there that they would like:

"Oh the cricket matches affected collections"

"Oh the makers made a mistake releasing the film on Laxmi Puja day"

"Oh the Diwali holidays this year were seperated/different compared to other years"

The reality is that there is only ONE reason that the film underperformed at the box office: CONTENT. That's it!

I remember on the day the film released, I read Komal Nahta's review and was caught off-guard. He mentioned that the film lacked merits, and a key point he mentioned was about the film showing peace between India and Pakistan.

Me and fellow forum member @Guddu.Pandit both had mentioned the same thing: the idea of showing peace between India and Pak, and/or being pro-Pak, may not work with the Indian audience.

And that's EXACTLY what happened.

Remember, just a few months ago, Sunny Deol's Gadar 2 had a HISTORIC run at the box office, and major sequences of the film were based on Sunny Deol having anti-Pak dialogues, and fighting Pakistanis.

In Tiger 3, (SPOILER ALERT) Salman saving the Pakistani PM is obviously NOT going to work with the Indian audience.

It's ridiculous to believe that the main reason for the massive underperformance of the film is the cricket matches. Do you guys really think people in India are going "oh we can't watch Tiger 3 because of the cricket matches. Looks like we'll never see Tiger 3 ever". If people really want to see the film, they would make time AFTER the matches, but unfortunately here, the film having mixed WOM means that the audience is not too excited.

BookMyShow Audience Ratings: 

Here's a comparison of Tiger 3's BookMyShow audience ratings compared to recent Blockbusters: 

Jawan: 8.4/10, 633.5K votes

Pathaan: 8.1/10, 371.5K votes

Gadar 2: 8.1/10, 304.5K votes

Tiger 3: 7.6/10, 152.9K votes

Tiger 3's audience rating has been DECLINING since the film released, a clear indicator of the film's Mixed WOM in India.

Is Director Maneesh Sharma to blame?

I'm seeing people point fingers at director Maneesh Sharma for ruining the film. People are even praising Sid Anand instead.

Can someone please tell me what Sid Anand did that was so great? I thought War was an absolutely garbage film. The trending of the film wasn't that great either: with a 50 crore opening, it couldn't reach the 300 crore mark. It was a Blockbuster, but it got there with just about decent WOM.

Same thing with Pathaan: even as an SRK fan, I can say that the film was average. Much like War, the storytelling is so lazy: Deepika betrays SRK at interval, and they get back together soon after, almost as if no betrayal even happened. Whatever.

I'm sure that if Tiger 3 had a story more built on Pak bashing, like Gadar 2, then not only would Tiger 3 have been a huge blockbuster, but no one would even question Maneesh's direction.

Salman's Laziness

This is a problem as well. Doing bullshit films like Radhe was one problem, but I remember seeing an episode of Big Boss where Salman was with Gippy Grewal. Gippy tried to get Salman to dance.....but Salman couldn't be bothered to get his hands out of his pockets. Dude looked like he just didn't care at all!

Even while watching Tiger 3, I noticed during the Ruaan song that Salman was barely moving his lips at one point . Again, he just doesn't look too interested!

Is Salman finished?

Short answer? HELL NO. In 2023, SRK literally came out of his grave to make an epic comeback. Sunny Deol's grave was dug even deeper, and he returned with the highest grossing film of all time (before Jawan defeated Gadar 2).

It's just a matter of the right film for Salman, and him showing interest in his work again.

A short note on Dhoom 3

I read this often online: "Dhoom 3 only made money because of the franchise. No one likes the film".

What does this even mean?

Let me just say this: it is IMPOSSIBLE for a film with Negative WOM to become an ALL TIME BLOCKBUSTER, AND THE BIGGEST GROSSER OF ALL TIME when it released.

If you truly believe that Dhoom 3 had Negative WOM, then you also have to believe that Aamir Khan is the biggest superstar of all time in Hindi cinema, that he delivered  some IMPOSSIBLE feat of delivering an ATBB with Negative WOM.

The audience comes to watch the film because of it being a part of a "franchise" only during the opening weekend. Dhoom 3 did 97 cr nett in its opening weekend. The rest 163 cr nett came AFTER its opening weekend.

Yes, people who liked Dhoom 3 exist. I have no shame in admitting that I absolutely LOVED the film.

Tiger 3 reaching HIT verdict only is an example of the audience coming to theatres with interest initially due to the franchise (42 crore opening) but many people not liking the film causing the film's collections to nosedive afterwards. Dhoom 3 had a record-breaking opening day AND sustained well after that.

On a Personal Note...

I watched Tiger 3 on Sunday, November 12. I didn't like the film. In fact, I went into a weird sort of depression after watching the film because of how thanda the experience was. Here in Canada, it has become more common for the audience to make noise, cheer, applaud, etc while watching a film. Lots of noise was made by the audience during Pathaan. Same with Gadar 2.

During Tiger 3, Salman made his entry....and there was NOTHING from the audience. In fact, the only time that the audience at my theatre made noise was when SRK made his entry.

I am a big fan of Salman and Katrina both, so to see them deliver a bad film with the much-awaited Tiger 3 and the film almost going unnoticed by the audience is a little heart-breaking.

In Closing....

In my opinion, Tiger 3 is the biggest box office disappointment of this decade so far (Jan 2020 onwards).

When Pathaan did 500 cr nett, and Salman's entry as Tiger in the film got such a thunderous reaction, I was absolutely confident that Tiger 3 would collect atleast 600 cr nett in India. It only makes sense: Pathaan as a standalone film did 500 cr nett, Tiger in the film got a thunderous reaction, and Tiger 3 is the third part of a Blockbuster franchise.

The collections of Tiger 3 being less than Pathaan is absolutely shocking to me. Even more shocking to me is that Tiger 3 won't even collect as much as Tiger Zinda Hai did.

Tiger 3 is basically the Dabangg 2 moment for the Tiger franchise: Dabangg 2 did well enough at the box office, but it didn't get anyone interested for Dabangg 3, which failed miserably at the box office.

Same thing with Tiger 3. I'm afraid that the Tiger character now has the stink of saving the Pakistani PM in the film, and there's no value left in continuing the Tiger franchise.

I will say, I ignored one important metric while forming my box office prediction for this film. Stay tuned to my predictions for Animal and Dunki, as I'll be using this metric to form my prediction.

Lastly, we should all thank Mr. Aditya Chopra. The guy had a golden, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity on his hands to bring together three of the biggest superstars of all time in Hindi cinema: Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, and Hritikh Roshan. In the early stages of this universe, Tiger 3 being the second film after this universe was officially announced, Aditya Chopra has already managed to f@ck it all up with Tiger 3. So congrats to him 👏 😡

I read till Pro Pak sentiments and I disagree with it mainly because I watched the movie with 12 people and none mention Pakistan or Pro Pak sentiments of the movie as a reason to not like it.

The screenplay made you restless, major chunk of box office for Indian movies comes from family audience, there is a reason why songs are included in the movie. This one didn't have good songs, only one sad song was there, I think something like "Besharam Rang" was needed to uplift the mood of the audience because there was absolutely nothing else to make you sit through it 

You have to engage your audience, there weren't any dialogues or moments worth clapping or cheering for other than cameos even then Hrithik's cameo was after the song and none was ready to stay to watch it.

Originally posted by: NoraSM

I read till Pro Pak sentiments and I disagree with it mainly because I watched the movie with 12 people and none mention Pakistan or Pro Pak sentiments of the movie as a reason to not like it.

The screenplay made you restless, major chunk of box office for Indian movies comes from family audience, there is a reason why songs are included in the movie. This one didn't have good songs, only one sad song was there, I think something like "Besharam Rang" was needed to uplift the mood of the audience because there was absolutely nothing else to make you sit through it 

You have to engage your audience, there weren't any dialogues or moments worth clapping or cheering for other than cameos even then Hrithik's cameo was after the song and none was ready to stay to watch it.

Do you live in India/watched the film in India? 

Don’t be too hard on yourself for your predictions not coming true.  A lot of people agreed with your predictions and are shocked by the numbers, specially the second weekend’s.  I was convinced that it would AT LEAST hit the 500cr mark and will probably end up somewhere between Gadar2 and Pathan.  

I enjoyed reading your analysis.  I hope you do this more often regardless of how a movie does.  

Originally posted by: srkat

Do you live in India/watched the film in India? 

Yeah 

If one of the main reason is pro pak thing,this is highly  scary situation currently in india:( 

I wrote about how london halls are not full house or people there did not like the movie,and audiences were not/are not cheering for the movie or salman - some one came and bashed me and tagged me as srk fan  Yes i am srk fan,but i love bajrangi bhaijan movie more than some srk movie. Actually i felt bad for tiger3 but some how seeing salman's disinterest ( as u mentioned he is lazy,not moving hands,no energy in acting and i felt the same and feeling the same seeing his current movies and bigg boss hosting) i thought- chalo he is not may be feeling bad for his movie,to main kaun hu!

Bobby my admiration of you is beyond films ♥️ 

One question and One statement 

You think YRF will make a Tiger 4 or TVP or more of these spy connected films ? 

I was joking before but if the people really did stay away cause they showed a friendship between countries then it’s scary hours indeed 

I have not watched the movie. Why should Indians get angry on Tiger saving Pak PM? In fact it should be proud/brag moment that inspite of political differences an Indian saves their country's PM. Unless saving situation context is something else. Otherwise how and why that should affect Indians view point against the movie, doesn't make sense.

Originally posted by: srkat

, but it didn't get anyone interested for Dabangg 3, which failed miserably at the box office.

😡

That was still 2019s 14th highest grossing film. An it actually would be no.7/8 in the 2023 list (that speaks to how much the films are making that aren’t the event ones. Even now) 

Not defending Dabangg 3 just pointing it out 

Uhmm, well I don't think Indo-pak thing is the issue. If it was the issue then it would affect repeat value. 

What affected the audience seems to be two major factors mainly Diwali and WC Cricket where Team India was winning all the matches with huge margins. 

If it was delayed by a week it would have definitely fared better. 

And yes Salman needs to come across as an agile person. He just doesn't move at times while dancing. 

Other than the story the songs are not of the level of ETT and TZH. A movie like Bodyguard simply worked because of it's songs! That's how important songs are.