Last Wednesday saw the much-awaited Bollywood releases, Shah Rukh Khan’s Raees and Hrithik Roshan’s Kaabil at the Tamil Nadu Box Office. Both the films were expected to do terrific business at the Box Office due to two factors; Republic Day weekend and the change in release dates of Suriya’s Si3. The third installment of the Singam franchise was expected to hit the screens on last Thursday, but later postponed owing to the current Jallikattu issue going on in Tamil Nadu.
And now, the results are out and as expected Raees beats Kaabil by a good margin despite having lesser number of screens compared to the Hrithik Roshan starrer. The Shah Rukh Khan starrer was released in 105 cinemas across the Chennai whereas Kaabil released on 175 screens including the Tamil dubbed version.
Interestingly, Raees has minted a good Rs. 2.50 crore from 7-theatrical days while Kaabil has grossed an average Rs.1.75 crore from the same days. But the bad news for Kaabil makers is the film started showing considerable drop from Monday and is looking tough to hold in the second weekend with Arvind Swamy – Jayam Ravi starrer Bogan slated to be released tomorrow.
On the other hand, Raees is doing decent business on the weekdays and will be getting good screens on it’s second weekend as well despite the new Tamil release.
Shah Rukh Khan in Raees/ Hrithik Roshan in Kaabil (Courtesy: YouTube)
A Chennai-based exhibitor said:
Raees is the clear winner because it had only a Hindi version and collected more than Kaabil, which had a Tamil dubbed version and more screens. It clearly shows that Shah Rukh Khan is a much bigger star than Hrithik in Tamil Nadu. The Hrithik film would have performed better if it was a solo release. Audiences today, especially in multiplexes, go by social media verdicts and many cannot afford to watch two films the same weekend.
