New Delhi: Aamir Khan’s Christmas release Dangal has helped the actor break his own record. The Nitesh Tiwari directed wrestling film is now the highest Bollywood grosser of all time, a record held by Khan’s own comedy drama PK (2014) until now.

The film collected Rs31.79 crore domestically over its third weekend, taking its total business to Rs345.3 core, Rs4.5 crore more than the Rs340.8 crore PK had earned in its lifetime. The film was released across 4,300 screens in India and close to 1,000 screens overseas.

The movie is a biographical sports drama on real-life Haryanvi wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat who coached his daughters Geeta Phogat and Babita Kumari to compete and win at the international level. The former is India’s first female wrestler to win at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Khan, who plays the lead role, stars alongside actors Sakshi Tanwar, Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sanya Malhotra.

To be sure, the film that has earned wide critical acclaim apart from setting the cash registers ringing despite the cash crunch that followed the Prime Minister’s demonetization move, couldn’t beat the opening day collections of the other wrestling blockbuster this year, Salman Khan’s Sultan, but has outdone its final earnings by Rs44.85 crore (and still counting).

The film has also outperformed Khan’s own Christmas offerings—a festive season he is known to have dominated for close to ten years.

In the past, apart from PK, his December releases like Dhoom 3 (2013), 3 Idiots and Ghajini (2008) had notched up Rs284.27 crore, Rs202.95 crore and Rs114 crore, respectively.

Khan is no stranger to breaking records though. His Ghajini was the first film to cross the Rs100 crore mark, 3 Idiots the first to make more than Rs200 crore and PK more than Rs300 crore.

Incidentally, the list of top five Bollywood grossers is dominated entirely by actors Aamir and Salman Khan. After Dangal and PK, Salman’s 2015 blockbuster Bajrangi Bhaijaan directed by Kabir Khan is the third-highest grossing Hindi film at Rs320.34 crore followed by Sultan at Rs300.45 crore and Aamir’s Dhoom 3 at Rs284.27 crore.

All figures in this story have been sourced from movie website Bollywood Hungama.

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