Shah Rukh Khan Starrer Sets An Unassailable Record For A Non-Holiday Release, Is 20 Crores Ahead Of Brahmastra

Pathaan has shown how an event film is supposed to look like. Once that’s established, it doesn’t matter whether the film releases on a holiday or non-holiday, mid-week or regular Friday, pre-pandemic or post-pandemic, negativity or positivity. What matters is pure entertainment, entertainment, entertainment, and in this case, sheer star power [Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, John Abraham] and uninhibited conviction in storytelling [Sidharth Anand] with big bucks supporting this vision [Yash Raj Films].

No wonder, even though no film before has even crossed the 40 crores mark on a non-holiday, here comes Pathaan which has not just done that but in fact even scored a century. This was a regular day where the only benefit was for the evening and night shows due to Republic Day holiday on the next day. Moreover, it was also a mid-week Wednesday release and past trends have show that there are far more misses when a film arrives on a Wednesday or Thursday when compared to a regular Friday. Still, Pathaan has scored so heavily and how.

Here is the list of Top-10 non-holiday Bollywood releases of all times, and the manner in which Pathaan stands right at the top reflects its sheer dominance:

Pathaan – 56 crores [Republic Day on Thursday]

Brahmastra – 37 crores (all languages) [No holiday]

Dhoom: 3 – 36.22 crores (all languages) [Christmas on Wednesday]

Sanju – 34.74 crores [No holiday]

Tiger Zinda Hai – 34.10 crores [Christmas on Monday]

Dangal – 29.78 crores [Christmas on Monday]

Race 3 – 29.17 crores [Eid on Saturday]

Bajrangi Bhaijaan – 27.25 crores [Eid on Sunday]

PK – 27 crores [Christmas on Thursday]

Kick – 26.52 crores [Eid on Saturday]

Many of these films are traditionally seen as holiday releases but the point to be noted is that none of these releases on an actual holiday. In many cases, the holiday was not just a day or two away but full 4-5 days ahead, which means had the product not been patronized (as has been seen with many other biggies as well especially in 2022 when none of the holiday releases actually worked at the box office), then the so-called holiday advantage actually turns out to be a bane with empty theatres greeting them.

Thankfully, the above Top-10 list has all winners in there, though Pathaan is the biggest of them all with a massive margin of 20 crores with the next best, Brahmastra. It seems like a rather unassailable lead for many more months to come, if not years, since a phenomenon like this is rather rare and it would require something truly special to even come close to it, leave aside surpassing it.

Note: Box office numbers are based on estimates and various sources. Numbers have not been independently verified by Koimoi.

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