‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ crosses ₹100 crore at box office

NEW DELHI: Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s biographical drama Gangubai Kathiawadi has hit the ₹100 crore mark, three weeks after its release in cinemas. The Alia Bhatt-starrer is now heading for collections of ₹115 crore and could even make it to Rs. 120 crore.

"We took a calculated risk releasing and choosing Gangubai Kathiawadi as the film that will bring cinemas back, but that was because we were fully confident of Sanjay Leela Bhansali and of the film, and it has paid off with the film doing well across the world,” Jayantilal Gadda, founder of PEN Studios, producers of the film said.

While single-screen operators in the Hindi heartland were confident that Gangubai Kathiawadi would draw huge crowds, some critics had feared the film directed by Bhansali, known for hits such as Padmaavat and Bajirao Mastani, appeared niche and experimental and may not draw mass-market audience. It also had to compete with Tamil action film Valimai that was not only expected to dominate most of south India, with early shows in Tamil Nadu and Kerala sold out in the run-up to release, the dubbed Hindi version of the movie was also likely to set the box office ringing.

Trade website Box Office India said Gangubai performed better than the last big-ticket Bollywood release '83 in several mass markets and while cities like Mumbai were always expected to bring in good numbers, central and eastern India and Andhra Pradesh have also done well, especially despite the release of a big Telugu film, Bheemla Nayak, for the latter. 

Despite the 50% capacity limit in several states, at ₹10 crore, it opened higher than Bhatt’s other solo hit Raazi that had made ₹7.33 crore when released in 2018, and was also the third-highest opening day post covid for a Hindi film, after Akshay Kumar’s Sooryavanshi ( ₹26.29 crore) and ’83 ( ₹12.64 crore). The last two, however, had the advantage of releasing on holiday weekends such as Diwali and Christmas.