FAN Advance Booking Report

FAN releases in theatres tomorrow and this film is probably the biggest test of Shah Rukh Khan’s ability to bring audience to theatres on Day 1. His last few films have either featured a top heroine, a strong supporting cast, universally appealing genre, huge in-your-face marketing campaigns and popular music. FAN has none of that. Absolutely none.

The director of the film, Maneesh Sharma, isn’t someone who can sell tickets either. The biggest hit of his career is Band Baaja Baarat, and his last two films Ladies vs Ricky Bahl and Shuddh Desi Romance didn’t do too well at the box office.

Yet, the advantage booking of FAN is by far the biggest this year and the tickets sold for Day 1 are about 2 / 3 times more than Airlift. However, the advance is best at multiplexes and is average to poor at smaller centres – which was expected due to lack of universal appeal of the film.

1. Mumbai City – The advance is solid in Mumbai. The film is getting plenty of shows at multiplexes, easily the highest for 2016 and the ticket prices have been hiked by around 20% too (compared to usual weekend rates). Mumbai, with holiday advantage, is set for a good opening day.

2. NCR Region (Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Ghaziabad etc) - Excellent advance, better than Mumbai city and strong throughout the NCR region.

3. Bangalore - Advance booking began late at quite a few multiplexes in Bangalore. At places where ticket counters were opened early, the advance varies from good to excellent. Finding tickets could be a problem on Friday though, because the number of shows aren’t as high as what a big film gets in a city like Bangalore.

4. Hyderabad – Excellent, all shows expected to be running close to capacity on Friday.

5.  Mangalore - Poor advance so far. It’s a small city and the advance of FAN is poor at quite a few B and C centres. These are likely to rely on word-of-mouth, which could come into effect as early as Friday evening.

6. Kolkata – SRK is the king here, record advance comparable to festive releases.

7. Chennai - Excellent, Khan is a huge crowd puller here, arguably the biggest followed by Aamir and Hrithik.

8. Patna - Decent, even at places where you have to visit the theatre to book tickets.

9. Chandigarh – Best of the year, but not even close to the kind of advance that big films get.

10. Valsad - Poor start and was dull until morning today, but has picked up towards the end of Thursday.

Stay tuned for the detailed box office prediction and IndicineFBO. Both will be out in an hour or so.