Powered by a good opening weekend of Rs. 33.80 crore, Udta Punjab has managed to score well in its first week. The film has brought in Rs. 48.50 crore which is a reasonably good number. That said, it has to be acknowledged that the weekdays could bring in a little less than Rs. 15 crore, which is more than 50% drop from the weekend. Frankly, one expected a little better and anything over Rs. 50 crore would have been all the more reason to rejoice for its makers. Still, considering the kind of journey that the Abhishek Chaubey film has seen right from its inception to its eventual release, no one would have any reason to complain.
In fact what is remarkable is that the film has managed to find a spot in Top-5 Week One of 2016:
Airlift - Rs. 83.5 crore
Housefull 3 - Rs. 80.10 crore
Fan - Rs. 71.50 crore
Baaghi - Rs. 59.72 crore
Udta Punjab - Rs. 48.50 crore
Moreover, the Ekta Kapoor and Phantom film is the only 'Adults Only' film in this entire list, which is no mean feat.
However, the drop in collections during the weekdays means that the film won't really have a huge haul in its eventual run. It will definitely cross Rs. 60 crore but niche target audience coupled with a plethora of releases this week (at last count, at least 8 films are hitting the screens) has resulted in a reduction of shows for the Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Diljit Dosanjh and Alia Bhatt starrer.
After R... Rajkumar [Rs. 66.1 crore] and Haider [56.09 crore], looks like Udta Punjab is going to be another Shahid Kapoor starrer to find itself in the Rs. 60 crore zone.
