Chup, a thriller starring Sunny Deol and Dulquer Salmaan and produced by the late Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and directed by R. Balki, has had a strong start at the Indian box office. Early estimates place the movie’s opening day take between between Rs. 2.60 and 3.20 crores. The movie benefited greatly from national cinema day because it replaced Brahmastra as the audience’s second favorite movie. The film’s opening day attendance was boosted by a solid trailer, well-known actors in the cast, and tickets priced at Rs. 75.
Chup is the best illustration of how the correct pricing can propel the business of a feature picture in India. Without National Cinema Day, Chup could have struggled to earn even a crore on Friday. More people purchased tickets because to the reasonable prices because Rs. 75 didn’t seem like a lot of money to most people. Chup was launched on about 1,000 screens in India, and several theaters experienced capacity issues the day of the release as a result of greater than anticipated crowd demand.
One of the biggest surprises of the year in terms of revenue and attendance was the fact that Chup sold about 4 lakh tickets on the day of its release. It may surpass the audience numbers for some of the major Bollywood blockbusters this year by the end of the opening weekend. Chup’s opening is comparable to that of several of the more popular Bollywood movies, such Runway 34, Jersey, and Jayeshbhai Jordaar, to name a few. However, when we compare the attendance, the opening appears even higher because Chup sold more tickets on the day of release than the combined number of tickets sold by the aforementioned films.
Chup serves as an industry case study for how a feature film’s pricing might benefit it in today’s price-sensitive society. Since the pricing will return to normal starting tomorrow, a decline in collections won’t surprise us. Given the positive reception to the movie so far, in a perfect world the producers and theater owners would have lowered the prices for the entire weekend. Alas, that isn’t the case. All things considered, Chup is off to a strong start at the box office. Hopefully, this encourages a growing number of directors to keep ticket prices low.
