Ajay Devgn is returning to direction with the upcoming action thriller Bholaa. The film, which also stars Tabu, Deepak Dobriyal and others, is a remake of the 2019 Tamil hit Kaithi. But given that it is much larger in scale and has Ajay Devgn’s star power, it is expected to perform better than the original. The film released in theatres on Thursday for the occasion of Ram Navami and has seen a solid start.
Bholaa saw advance booking sales of Rs 2.3 crore across India for its first day. Given that it is getting a mid-week festive opening, Bholaa is expected to put up a strong showing on the extended opening weekend. As per trade analysts, Bholaa is expected to earn Rs 10-12 crore net in the domestic market. While the figure is lower than Ajay Devgn’s previous release Drishyam 2 (which made Rs 16 crore on day one), it is a healthy figure given Bholaa is not a sequel.
The Rs 10-12 crore figure would mean that the film stands to register the third-highest opening this year by any film, behind only Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan and Ranbir Kapoor’s Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar. Pathaan made an industry record Rs 57 crore on day one in January and Tu Jhothi Main Makkaar made Rs 15.73 crore.
It will be interesting to see how Bholaa holds up on Friday after the first reviews are out and word of mouth spreads. But in any case, the film does stand to earn somewhere between Rs 35-40 crore in its extended weekend. And this is a conservative figure that can easily go up to Rs 50 crore provided if the word of mouth is positive.
Bholaa is almost a certainty to cross the numbers set by Kaithi. The Karthi-starrer earned Rs 74 crore net in India and just over Rs 100 crore gross worldwide upon its release four years ago.
