An action biggie, when helmed by a credible director known for his craft of narrating such big budget takes, and with a superstar lead cast and grand production values, is always expected to open well at the box office. We saw that first last year same time with Pathaan when Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham came together for Siddharth Aanand directed Pathaan, and then later with Gadar 2, Jawan and Animal as well.
While each of these biggies opened in Rs. 40-75 crores range, the stakes went higher for films that are arriving in 2024 as well. After all, audiences had made 2023 as the biggest year ever for Bollywood films and with Fighter seeing Siddharth Anand return again on Republic Day eve and Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone and Anil Kapoor being the key cast members, the expectations had soared further. That’s the reason why a big number is certainly on the cards.
However, Thursday release for a film is always tricky and in case of Fighter too, it seems like the momentum will truly start picking up from Friday when it’s the Republic Day holiday. The advance booking did open a few days back but the advance ticket sales - which should ideally have gone past the Rs. 3 crores mark at least and potentially got into that Rs. 3.5-4 crores range by the time the first show started, isn’t really there. This could also be due to Ram Mandir event which has been trending day in & night out for last few days which has possibly impacted the hype around Fighter. That said, the film has an advantage of an open period ahead and with Rs. 25 crores still guaranteed to come in with potential to go a couple of crores higher, Fighter should manage very good footfalls from Friday if supported by positive word of mouth.
