Just a couple of months ago, director Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar had a historic run at the box office. What started with Rs 28 crore on the opening day ended with net Rs 837 crore domestically and Rs 1,303 crore worldwide. The film, according to trade estimates, made a profit of Rs 500 crore. The film directed by Ranveer Singh broke all records and trampled everything in its path, and even forced filmmakers to delay the release of their films to avoid being ignored in theaters. Now its sequel will arrive next month. (March 19), and there is no doubt that the second film starts from a position of power that the first never had.
Dhurandhar’s theater career
According to reports, the budget Of both, the film cost between 300 and 350 million rupees, as they were largely shot together. The streaming rights to the former were sold to netflix even though Jio Studios, which has the Jio Hotstar streaming platform, was the producer. While the streaming giant wanted both parts for a reported price of Rs 150 crore, Dhar and his team believed they could do wonders with the film. His instincts proved correct and Dhurandhar amassed a gigantic collection.
Now, even if we only consider the Hindi net collection, the makers have around Rs 500 crore in the bank to push the sequel and interestingly, the sequel has already started generating profits for them.
No matter who backed it or who the main star is, nothing can solidify a film’s box office position before its release. There are no guarantees in the business unless the film starts generating revenue several weeks before its release in theaters.
First, the makers of the film announced that they will be shifting their music partners from Saregama to T-Series. There is no doubt that the T Series has a broader reach as far as the market is concerned and has one of the largest subscriber bases in the world. To serve that huge base, they also have the rights to some of the most popular Indian films that have been released in the last three decades. the music of The first movie caused all kinds of waves.
While it garnered views on YouTube and streams on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, much of the music went viral on social media. For example, Dhurandhar’s title track, or rapper Flipperachi’s song ‘Fa9la’, was used to death for reels, posts and Instagram stories. The title track has been used to make over 1.1 million reels on the platform, and this only counts the original version released by the film’s creators. Duplicate and separate versions also exist, bringing the music to users far beyond the country’s borders. So it made sense for T-Series to pay Rs 28 million for the music rights.
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The same goes for broadcasting rights, because Dhurandhar is now a proven entity. They were undecided about the first one and that’s why they decided to sell it to Netflix. Now that there are no cash issues, it is only natural for the makers of the film to turn to its parent company, JioStudios. That’s another Rs 150 crore in the pockets of the makers, which means Dhurandhar 2 has already earned Rs 178 crore.
Dhurandhar 2 Theatrical Tour Predictions
Let’s say the movie doesn’t do any better than the first movie and just maintains the same earnings pattern. Even then, the film is conservatively expected to gross Rs 200 crore in its first week. The reason many believe the film will do better is because the franchise already has committed fans who want to see what happens next. So it is no longer an arrow in the dark but an aligned target. Trade expects the film to earn Rs 250 crore on pre-release alone, just like established franchises like Pushpa, Baahubali and KGF with their sequels.
Again, there are no guarantees that the sequel will do better or as well as Dhurandhar, because the film was also criticized for many of its features. There are still bad reviews of the film, which means there are many who may not give the sequel the chance they gave the first. But if we look at the current state of money involved and how much is in the red, Dhurandhar 2 is likely to succeed.
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Dhurandhar 2 vs Toxic
As per audience interest, there is a lot of buzz around Yash’s Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups and Dhurandhar 2. On the ticket booking site, Yash-starrer has around 363k likes. However, Dhurandhar, who recently appeared on the platform, is rapidly rising in terms of interest and has received more than 106,000 interests.