Of the national multiplex chains, PVR alone had sold 92,000 tickets of Brahmastra for Friday in advance, till 9 a.m. today (Thursday, September 8). This means that by the end of the day, it alone will have crossed the 1,00,000 mark — that too, for just Friday. To put it in better perspective, let it be mentioned that the total number of tickets for the opening day of Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 sold in advance by the three largest national multiplex chains — PVR, Inox and Cinepolis — till Thursday night was 92,000. In the case of Brahmastra, that figure has been crossed by one chain alone, that too, at the start of Thursday! If one were to consider the number of tickets sold so far for only Friday, by the three national multiplex chains, it is 1,87,158. The break-up: PVR 92,023, Inox 65,197, Cinepolis 29,938. In money terms, tickets worth Rs. 6-plus crore (gross) have already been sold for Friday alone.
What does this mean? In terms of business, it implies that Brahmastra is all set for a phenomenal initial. With the kind of numbers the advance booking has thrown up, it can safely be deduced that it will open at nothing less than Rs. 27-28 crore. My personal opinion is that the film’s first day all-India net collection figure would be in the region of Rs. 31-32 crore!
And what does this mean for the Boycott Bollywood movement? It simply means that the movement is dead. Yes, it is dead and gone. The very fact that Brahmastra will open to such big houses — and this seems almost a certainty now, after the phenomenal advance booking — implies that people are not interested in the call for boycott of the film or boycott of hero Ranbir Kapoor or leading lady Alia Bhatt. God forbid, even if the collections were to drop after the first day, the Boycott Bollywood Brigade will not be able to take credit for the same. For, the drop would happen if and only if the content is not up to expectations. Clearly, the extraordinary advance booking numbers of Brahmastra implies that the Boycott Bollywood Brigade has already died. RIP!
P.S.: Frankly, the Brigade can’t take credit for the failures of a film like Laal Singh Chaddha also, because the trailer of the film itself had not been received too well by the paying public. If one remembers, there were many people who had found the trailer irritating and Aamir’s acting in it similar to what he had done in earlier films.