Udta Punjab box office collections are steady as the Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt starrer reaches near the end of its first week’s run even as the slow decline is continuing, That said, it is not ‘Udta Punjab’ that is on people’s minds, it is Salman Khan’s Sultan, which is being eyed to beef-up the box office numbers for Bollywood at the start of the second half of the year. Sultan release date is 6th July, according to Bollywood Hungama, to take advantage of the Eid holiday as well as to ensure a 5-day holiday run.
So far, indications are that Salman Khan’s Sultan collection prediction (opening day collections) would top the Rs 30 crore mark. However, with almost a fortnight to go for the film’s release, it has to be seen how much bigger the Ali Abbas Zafar directed film opens.
So far in 2016, every month (barring May) has thrown up at least one clean hit/superhit. These are Airlift [January], Neerja [February], Kapoor & Sons [March], Baaghi and Ki & Ka [April] and Housefull 3 [June]. However, a blockbuster is still awaited. Fan was meant to be one such film but it flopped. Now there is good anticipation that Sultan brings in those blockbuster numbers that are pretty much needed for the industry.
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As far as Udta Punjab collections are concerned, the film earned Rs 3.40 crore more on Wednesday and with this, the collections now stand at Rs 45.70 crore. While this means that the film won’t be able to touch Rs. 50 crore at the end of first week, this is still a good number considering the kind of trouble that it had to go through pre-release. Also, till before the censor controversy broke, such numbers would have been conveniently lapped up by the makers as the buzz wasn’t super great till then.
By Joginder Tuteja