Bollywood
Welcome To The Jungle Day 15: Akshay Kumar's Film Mints 1 Cr Net Following a 50% Screen Reduction
BY CHRISTA LINCY
The third Friday has proven to be a challenging day for Welcome To The Jungle, as the film faced a significant reduction in its theatrical footprint to accommodate the release of Dhamaal 4. On its 15th day, the comedy entertainer collected a net of ₹ 1.00 crore in India. This represents a 53.5 per cent drop from the ₹ 2.15 crore it managed on the previous day. This sharp decline is directly linked to a massive screen crunch; while the movie was running on 6,092 shows this Thursday, that number was cut down to 3,769 shows on Friday, effectively losing nearly half of its screens in a single day. Currently, the total India net collection for Welcome To The Jungle stands at ₹ 126.05 crore, with the India gross reaching ₹ 149.80 crore. On the international front, the film added ₹ 0.25 crore on Friday, bringing its total overseas gross to ₹ 31.70 crore. When we look at the global picture, the total worldwide gross collection has now reached ₹ 181.50 crore. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}) The impact of new competition is very clear when we examine the performance in national chains like PVR, INOX, and Cinepolis. On Thursday, the film was holding steady in these chains with around 12,000 tickets sold, generating a gross of approximately ₹ 26 lakh. However, by Friday, those numbers saw a steep fall. Across the three major chains, the film sold only about 2,900 tickets, bringing in a gross of ₹ 9 lakh. PVR contributed nearly 1.4k tickets with a gross of ₹ 4.5 lakh, followed by INOX with 1.3k tickets and ₹ 3 lakh gross. Cinepolis saw a much smaller contribution of nearly 0.3k tickets, amounting to around ₹ 70,000 in gross collections. On BookMyShow, the shift in audience interest was also evident. The film had sold about 27,640 tickets on its second Thursday, but that figure dropped to 13,940 tickets on the third Friday. The total lifetime tickets sold on the platform have now reached 2,235,000. Much like Alia Bhatt's Alpha, Welcome To The Jungle stopped trending on the BookMyShow charts on Saturday due to the Dhamaal 4 surge. However, in a surprising turn, the film has started to trend again, particularly during the 11 AM to 12 PM window, suggesting some level of recovery or interest from the weekend crowd. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}) The overall occupancy for the Hindi 2D version stood at 12.92 per cent on Friday. The film started the day with 8.77 per cent occupancy in the morning shows and saw a very minor increase to 9.38 per cent in the afternoon. Evening shows remained steady at 10.23 per cent, but there was a notable jump in the night shows, which reached 17.77 per cent. This indicates that while daytime shows are struggling due to the competition, there is still a dedicated audience opting for the late-night screenings. Regional data shows some interesting variations, particularly in Bengaluru. While most cities were quiet, Bengaluru recorded an impressive overall occupancy of 27.5 per cent, fueled by a massive 47 per cent occupancy during the morning shows. In contrast, the National Capital Region (NCR) saw a modest 10 per cent occupancy across 616 shows, with night shows peaking at 14 per cent. Mumbai, with 402 shows, managed an overall 12 per cent occupancy, where night shows were the most active at 17 per cent. Lucknow performed relatively well with 11.8 per cent overall occupancy, while cities like Ahmedabad and Pune stayed under the 10 per cent mark. Surat remained the weakest performing major circuit with an occupancy of just 3.5 per cent. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}) While the 50 per cent reduction in screens has limited its potential for a massive third week, Welcome To The Jungle is still finding pockets of audience, especially in the south. The coming two days will be crucial to see if the renewed trending status translates into a weekend jump that can help the film push further toward the ₹ 200 crore worldwide mark.