'Dunki' vs 'Salaar' Advance Booking: Shah Rukh Khan's Drama Outperforming Prabhas' Epic Actioner
The pre-release figures show that Shah Rukh Khan's film ‘Dunki’, based on illegal immigration, is outperforming Prabhas’ epic action-thriller ‘Salaar’.
The countdown has begun for one of the most anticipated box office clashes in the history of Indian cinema. Yes, you read that right! It will be Shah Rukh Khan vs Prabhas at the box office. Rajkumar Hirani's 'Dunki' starring SRK, Taapsee Pannu, Vicky Kaushal and Boman Irani, will be releasing in cinemas on December 21. The movie will be facing competition from Prashanth Neel's 'Salaar: Part 1 - Ceasefire' starring Prabhas, Prithviraj Sukumaran and Shruti Haasan. ‘Salaar’ will be releasing in cinemas on December 22.
The advance booking for both the films is well and truly underway. The pre-release business figures are revealing an unexpected trend as Shah Rukh Khan's drama based on illegal immigration is outperforming an epic action-thriller in the form of 'Salaar'.
For Day 1, SRK's 'Dunki' has so far sold 2,55,796 tickets across India, grossing Rs 7.46 crore already. When it comes to Prabhas' 'Salaar', the film has sold 2,48,654 tickets across five languages in India, grossing Rs 6.03 crore.
In the Hindi version, 'Salaar' is struggling big time as it has sold just 36,363 tickets.
For the unversed, 'Dunki' is releasing across India in just one language (Hindi), while 'Salaar' is releasing in five languages -- Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam.
In the Telugu version, 'Salaar' has so far sold 1,29,817 tickets, while in the Malayalam version, 65,877 tickets have been sold so far.
'Dunki' is Shah Rukh Khan's third release of 2023 after 'Pathaan' and 'Jawan'. Both 'Pathaan' and 'Jawan' had earlier grossed more than Rs 1,000 crore each globally.
In the case of Prabhas, his last three releases (Radhe Shyam, Saaho and Adipurush), have turned out to be box office duds, and the Telugu star is in desperate need of a box office hit.
Earlier, Prashanth Neel had said that no filmmaker desires a clash, be it with a newcomer or a veteran like Rajkumar Hirani.
"Clash is not something you ideally want, be it with a newcomer or with the biggest star of Indian cinema. But it is a very unpleasant situation for anybody to move their date to somebody else's date. We also wouldn't want somebody to move to our date when we have announced it a year before. And we also did not want to do it. But that was a logistical decision that was taken only by the production," Prashanth Neel told The Times of India.
"And usually we (me and my team) don't get into the aspects of what the production is going to decide as a release date, because they do not interfere in my process of filmmaking. So I do not interfere in their process of marketing or the release dates, the business aspect," he added.
2023 has witnessed several big box office clashes, including 'Oppenheimer' and 'Barbie', 'Gadar 2' and 'OMG 2', and 'Animal' and 'Sam Bahadur'.
