Pathaan: Shah Rukh Khan film breaks Brahmastra’s record of highest advance booking in Bollywood post-pandemic

It’s still some days to go for the release of Pathaan but the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer is already setting records at the box office. The advance bookings of the film, which began four day back, are in full flow. The phenomenal response and huge demand for tickets has meant that Pathaan has already broken the record for the highest advance booking for opening day by any Bollywood film post-pandemic.

On Sunday afternoon, Pathaan crossed the day one advance booking figure of last year’s hit Brahmastra Part One – Shiva (Rs 17.71 crore). As of now, Pathaan has almost Rs 18 crore in advance booking gross for its opening day. Trade tracker Sacnilk puts a bulk of those collections from the Hindi version. The Telugu dub has also seen some demand though, grossing 20 lakh. Pathaan hits the screens on Wednesday, January 25. The pre-sales opened in India on January 18 and full advance booking opened on January 20.

Given that three full days are left for the film’s release, trends indicate that the film’s day one advance booking gross should easily cross Rs 25 crore. The all-time record for any Bollywood film is War’s Rs 26.90 crore and Pathaan should cross that figure by Tuesday, if all goes well. The record figure for any film in Hindi belongs to KGF Chapter 2. It’s Hindi dub sold tickets of Rs 40.65 crore for day one. That figure may be a target too high for Pathaan but one can’t put it beyond its reach totally.

The advance bookings for the YRF film have surpassed all expectations. As a result, the film’s exhibitors have opened early morning (6am) shows for the film for the first week, something that Hindi films hardly ever see. Pathaan is part of Yash Raj Films’ YRF Spy Universe, bringing together the characters from the Tiger series and War. Apart from Shah Rukh, the film stars John Abraham and Deepika Padukone in pivotal roles.