Kaabil and Raees: Inflated Box Office Collections and our estimates!

There comes a time when a strong stand has to be taken against the inflation of box office collections – which has crossed all possible limits with the release of Raees and Kaabil. The theatres are empty but the collections, both films combined, are at record levels for weekdays.

Before we begin, credit should go to Red Chillies and Excel for keeping the collections at reasonable levels throughout the weekend. They probably had no choice but to inflate Monday onwards because the other film would’ve otherwise overtaken them and that would mean negative reports in the mainstream media – which follows official figures. But that’s no excuse for inflation to levels of insanity when the film isn’t even collecting half of what they have quoted.

There’s been plenty of action behind-the-scenes too. A leaked audio clip had a PR instructing her people that the film has to cross a particular number on Monday. The producer of one of the two films had a spat with a leading trade analyst because he did not quote the official figures on his television show. Success has been celebrated multiple times through parties, numerous media interactions claiming victory – even though the final box office numbers of both films wouldn’t do justice to the stardom of both stars.

What’s been most embarrassing for the industry and the trade is the sheer desperation from both sides to spread the word through the media that the two films are bigger successes than they actually are.

From our site’s point of view, exposing the lies and revealing the truth has quite a few negative effects too. We could lose out on visitors, our traffic could drop, because the craze for box office numbers has reached such a stage where people only want to believe the source that quotes the higher number.

But with the producer numbers crossing all limits of sanity, our credibility, which we’ve built over a period of more than 10 years, is at stake. It’s disappointing because we haven’t been able to do what we love to do. We love analysing the trends, predicting the lifetime collections, giving our readers comparisons between different films – unfortunately, inflation of collections has killed our own interest and has also stopped us from posting our daily box office reports.

Some other random thoughts:

  • The Indian box office is immensely difficult to track, especially the single screens / fixed rentals. On a daily basis, almost impossible. Most figures that are put out are estimates based on collections from multiplexes, links to live theatre samples, circuit figures etc.
  • But inflation even happens at the exhibitor (theatre) level and more so at circuit level – depending on which star or film they are siding with. Very few are neutral and even fewer are honest when it comes to these big films. For example, we receive Rajasthan circuit figures from two different people, and both are quoting different figures for each day.
  • The ‘trade source’ which most people quote, has been at it too over the first few days. Not including collections from the dubbed versions is wrong and completely writing off one film on the first day of release itself is unethical, especially in a clash when the reports aren’t as bad a Mohenjo Daro. Also, 5% inflation of one film and 5% deflation (reduction) of the other, can make a massive difference to the final outcome. Which is why we think, if Rakesh Roshan had kept the figures to actual levels, his film would’ve still been at a fairly good total going in to the second weekend.
  • Also, who takes into account the ticket sold in the first weekend through brand promoters? Without taking any name, a huge amount of tickets were sold in bulk at discounted prices to corporates and brand promoters in the first weekend, which helped boost the collections. As per information from industry insiders, this itself is about 10% of the first extended weekend collections.

And finally, we are putting our own estimates for the two films. Believing it or not is your choice, but we’ve put in immense amount of work in the last few days gathering data from multiple sources – verifying and reverifying – before putting it out. We are going to stick to these numbers from now onwards and the lifetime total won’t be the official figures released by the producers.

A lot of questions are now going to come up with regards to the data already existing on our website. Like collections of a Krrish 3 or a Happy New Year, but be rest assured that the next couple of months will be spent in changing the data on the website. Both the collections and verdicts will be changed. Stay tuned for more.

Our estimate, day-wise, for both films below. Do note, we haven’t yet verified collections for 2nd Friday, which has been marked with * symbol.

RAEESKAABIL
Day 119.758.50
Day 226.0016.25
Day 312.758.00
Day 415.0011.50
Day 516.7513.50
Day 66.504.75
Day 75.754.50
Day 85.204.00
Day 94.503.50
Day 102.752.75
Day 114.004.50
Day 125.005.75
India Total126.7 crore87.5 crore
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307 Comments

  • Till Day 5 Raaes makers were showing same figure as trade but when they saw kabil makers inflating from day 1…they have no choice but to inflate..Blame should be on rakesh roshan.

  • lol how desperate are they to inflate box office for raees and kaabil.
    only two real stars in bollywood. Salman Khan and Aamir Khan

  • That is exactly what I had suggested. The producers should have known the outcome when they decided to go for the clash. What’s the point in fudging collections.
    Way to go @indicine.??

  • Lifetime collection of most films will be the manipulation collection of Kaabil . At the end of its run 55-60 crs will be the manipulation

  • Bhai SRK is Helpless. Rakesh Roshan is giving Higher numbers for his movies, and if he continues this then Kaabil will take the lead. Then many will think Raees isn’t as good as Kaabil. Yeh sab Takla Roshan ne Shuru Kiya. Coz look at Raees’ 1st Weekend collections, it was pretty much the same as the Trade Collections.

  • You have pointed out quite correctly that Red Chillies have been forced to inflate due to Rakesh Roshan’s antics.
    They had gracefully accepted defeat in case of Dilwale

  • The official collection of 10 days of Raees 128.9 (Actual 115.20) & Kabil 96.85 (Actual 77.25). The diiference of Raees is 13 crore & difference of Kabil is 19 crore. Thats mean Raees will be clean Hit & Kabil will be average movie.

  • Very humble to see that you are on right side not care about your audience and do actual things hats off to you and your team @indicine

  • So Kaabil had collected less figures than Mohenjodaro on opening day!! Earlier @indicine said that it was higher!

  • Shame on kaabil because of them all this has happened . Red chillies didn’t manipulate the collection. With Dilwale also they were loosing, they excepted their defeat but here why they should they be back if the other film is manipulating constantly. Shame on rakesh roshan shame.

  • Ego of producers has destroyed the image of a gr8 movie like Kaabil.
    Industry needs a solution to this ,but one thing is sure that BOI is underreporting kaabil ,they r always against HR and against kaabil from the first day they were using words like finished ,crushed ,etc we shd not believe BOI blindly neither Producers ….

  • ye sab chodo aur itna batahdo – is kaabil a hit?? i think so bcz it needed just 90cr approx to get the tag

  • “The theatres are empty but the collections, both films combined, are at record levels for weekdays.”
    u seem to have visited every possible SS & multiplex too.. good job indicine :)

    your mouth was shut when Rakesh Roshan was giving inflated figures. but u were quoting that figures.now when RCE is giving 1-2 crs extra per day from BOI figures u seem to have lost your mind.

    if we take BOI figures then RCE gave 15 crs more only till now but Rakesh Sir had given 40 crs extra already.

    RCE was giving the correct figures till Rakesh Roshan had gone past every possible limits everyday. then RCE had to do that bcz Rakesh Roshan wasn’t stopping… “Lohe ko loha hi kat sakta hai”

    now coming to other films then every single film in the industry has inflated figures if we take BOI figures whether its Dangal or whether its CE,sultan,k3,bang bang etc etc etc

    Thank you.

  • Kaabil makers fake it since day one so raees makers started faking the collection since Monday and i don’t blame theme Rakesh roshan did it for krrish 3 and now for kaabil but even with the real figures RAEES beat kaabil and even the fake collection

  • If u are accepting producers figures for some movie then have guts to accept producer fig for every movie. How can we trust BOI which changes its verdict from tine to time.
    Tom Dick nd Harry ( Sumit , Rohit nd Jaiswal ) are also responsible for this inflated fig because neither they can determine collection of whole India nor they are above sites like Indicine. They are doing all for followers. God bless them

  • Great Article.
    One question but how are you going to collect right collections of movies which were released two years back?

    • @Durgesh, we have a database of theatre collections from the last 4-5 years. There is also a lot of data available on trade magazine, which can be used to compared and analyse. Again, the collections will never be 100% accurate, only the producers know the actual collections of films but some of them choose not to reveal.

  • Hatts off to you @indicine for speaking truth and exposing fake Red chillies and filmkraft productions.This seriously needs to be stop now.

  • I THANK you very much for this team Indicine and I hope you continue with this and also correct those from the past. It is these numbers which I TRUST. You are doing a very wonderful job, keep it up.

  • Raees stands at a difference of 7 crores and kabil ufff… so they are kabil atleast in inflating…… guess raees had no choice coz team kabil were inflating from the word go……

  • This clash happened just coz of Ego ,no sense to do this clash aur jab clash hi ego ki wajah se hua hai to I’m not surprised what’s going on ?
    This clash has no solution…
    BTW @indicine u said during opening day that Kaabil is a little short of 10 cr it’s in the range of 9-10 cr acc to ur sources ,so now 8.5 cr how??

  • Definately blame shld b on roshans… 5% inflation is ok but they are out of limit 77=100 they are above limits… So for raees also they have to inflate figures..

  • Well done indicine.
    What a fantastic fantastic post.
    You will win many hearts through this post.
    Fan war aside, you have increased your credibility

  • Big fan of Shahrukh khan and hrithik Roshan but this is ridiculous from both production house….they inflated raees 13 cr and kaabil 20 cr…

  • Its no brainer that both the films have under perfomed and clash has not helped any of them either.I think that as Mr. Rakesh Roshan had started inflating the collections from the very first day itself (almost by 2.5 cr daily) , Raees Producers had no other choice but to increase the collection from monday as for the frist 5-day of Raees figures of boi.com and producers figures were not having much of a difference. Thus I think the PR (As mentioned in article above) must be of red chillies as they would not have any other choice but to inflate their’s collection other *Official* figures of Kaabil would have easily crossed Raees and that would have made positive media impact for Kaabil and negatively impacted the collections of Raees..

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