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Coolie advance booking crosses ₹50 crore; Rajinikanth film beats Thug Life, Emergency lifetime hauls even before release
Coolie advance booking: Rajinikanth is set to rewrite box office records with this Lokesh Kanagaraj film, if pre-sales numbers are any indicator.
It is still four days until the release of Rajinikanth-starrer Coolie, but already, the film is breaking box office records. The advance booking of tickets for the film opened in India on Friday, a few days after it did so internationally. Four days ahead of its release, Coolie has already crossed ₹50 crore in advance bookings worldwide, a monumental number. Given that the real surge for tickets in India is yet to begin, the number could easily double by release day.
Coolie advance booking report
Coolie, a film by Lokesh Kanagaraj, is one of the most anticipated films of the year. Apart from Rajinikanth, it also stars Nagarjuna, Upendra, and Shruti Haasan in lead roles, with a cameo by Aamir Khan, making the film truly pan-India. Sacnilk reported that by Saturday, the advance booking for the film in the international market had crossed $4 million. Trade sources tell HT that by Sunday, the figure has likely crossed $5 million (around ₹42 crore).
In addition, Coolie has sold tickets at a breakneck pace in India since pre-sales began in a staggered manner in the domestic market on Friday. As of Sunday morning, Coolie has sold tickets worth ₹10 crore for the opening day alone, and ₹14 crore overall. The bulk of this ( ₹9.98 crore) has come from the original Tamil version, but the Telugu and Kannada versions have also started well. The Hindi dub is slow in advance booking, selling only 2500 tickets from 400 shows so far, but is likely to pick up soon. Coolie will easily surpass the highest advance booking for any Rajinikanth film. Jailer had set the mark with ₹18 crore in India. But its target will be Leo's ₹46 crore all-time record.
Coolie beating films' lifetime box office hauls before release
The ₹14 crore Coolie has earned in India so far means that it has already crossed the lifetime box office earnings of a major Hindi film like Emergency, and it has not even been released yet. Perhaps, a fairer comparison would be with a superstar-led Tamil film, though. But even there, Coolie has reigned supreme. Its ₹41 crore overseas gross is higher than what Kamal Haasan's last film - Thug Life - had managed in the foreign market. Domestically, Coolie is still behind, but promises to catch up before August 14, its release day.
Given the current trend, Coolie is on course for one of the biggest openings for an Indian film, and likely the biggest opening in Rajinikanth's stellar career.
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