Raees to hold on to its lead, Kaabil likely to surprise over the weekend

Hrithik Roshan’s Kaabil is likely to surprise over the weekend, as the film is carrying very good reports. We’ve been busy asking a lot of people – audience, exhibitors etc - trying to gauge the word-of-mouth, which is extremely difficult to ascertain in the first couple of days of release.

But now, nearly 3 days after the release of the Sanjay Gupta directed film, things are becoming a lot more clearer and the word-of-mouth seems to be ranging from good to excellent, with vast majority of the audience liking the film.

The one major factor in favour of Kaabil could be the family audience, the key for films to have long and successful runs at the box office. If they begin to come out in big numbers, business of films can go from strength-to-strength.

However, the hurdles remain. Raees is being liked by the audience too and will perform very well over the weekend. The limited capacity (fewer shows and lower capacity screens) could begin to affect the business of Kaabil during the crucial weekend (Saturday and Sunday).

While the clash has also affected Raees, it will have the upper hand going into the weekend, because it has a higher capacity release and hence bigger potential – if business peaks.

For example, at a theatre in Patiala (Punjab), Raees has collected Rs 1,22,409 on 9 shows, with the average working out to Rs 13,601 per show. Kaabil has collected Rs 79,142 on 6 shows, with the average at Rs 13,190 per show. If Kaabil had higher number of shows, spread over the entire day, it would’ve collected more even though the average would’ve been lesser.

Also, from the numbers above, the gap has narrowed down quite considerably. At the same theatre on Wednesday (Day 1), Raees was collecting 2.5 times more than Kaabil, now it’s almost equal with Raees leading by a very small margin.

Of course, this is just one theatre and sample figures from theatres in other cities like Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Hyderabad – suggest that Raees is still holding a fairly big lead. NCR region, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Mangalore, Indore and several other cities, the gap has come down quite drastically. Smaller centres, single-screens and muslim dominated areas, it’s Raees all the way.

The numbers are still heavily in favour of Raees too, but Kaabil is showing better trends at the box office and over a longer period of time (2 full weeks to go before Jolly LLB 2), it’s the trend that’s going to be more important than the initial. The film that performs better over the next 10 days (until the 2nd Sunday next week) will emerge victorious. The trend over the next few days will also decide which film gets the higher number of shows and screens in Week 2.

Will Raees hold on to its lead and dominate like it has done in the first two days or will Kaabil match up and surpass the Shah Rukh Khan starrer? Those are going to be big questions as we head into the last 2 days of the extended Republic Day weekend.