By Joginder Tuteja

2018 has ended on a high. Last release of the year, Simmba, has turned out to be a massive success already. After taking a huge opening of Rs 20.72 crore and then amassing Rs 100 crore in just a little over 4 days, the film stayed on to be unstoppable during rest of the weekdays as well. As a result, the film’s first week numbers currently stand at Rs 151 crore.

On its release it was expected that the film would end up doing a lifetime business of around Rs 150.81 crore. Even that would have been enough to ensure superhit status for the film. However, audiences had different plans for his Rohit Shetty and Ranveer Singh entertainer and they ensured that the film was set for a much longer run.

As a result, the film will now cross Rs 200 crore mark in a jiffy and it is expected that this milestone would be achieved well inside the second week itself. Once that happens, it would be Rohit Shetty’s third century after Chennai Express and Golmaal Again. In fact, it would be interesting to see if Rohit’s personal record of Chennai Express (Rs 227 crore) would be beaten by Simmba. As things stand today, that would be very much possible as Simmba should go past that number by a distance.

For Ranveer Singh this has turned out to be a dream outing as after the Rs 300 crore blockbuster success of Padmaavat, he is now looking at his second blockbuster in a row and that too in the form of a double century. For the young superstar this is a huge achievement in itself and now one waits to see what he has to offer with his next release Gully Boy. The film’s poster has been released and one looks forward to the trailer unveiling of this Valentine’s Day release which has Alia Bhatt paired opposite Ranveer.

As for Sara Ali Khan, this is now her second consecutive success in the matter of one month, the kind of stuff that dreams are made of. First Kedarnath turned out to be a good success with collections over Rs 70 crore mark and now with Simmba aiming for bigger milestones, she is now set well for an eventful 2019 and 2020.

On the other hand 2018 has ended on a disappointing note for Shah Rukh Khan whose Zero will now fall short of the Rs 100 crore milestone. The film had collected around Rs 96.50 crore so far and has come to a stop. This was the kind of number that was expected from the film at the bare minimum in the opening weekend itself. As a matter of fact in the worst case scenario Zero was a film aiming for Rs 200 crore club.

However it has fallen short and how, which yet again indicates how ruthless the audiences have turned out to be when it comes to entertainment quotient (or the lack of it) that the films have to offer today regardless of the superstars featuring in there.

We saw that earlier this year when Salman Khan’s Race 3 folded up at Rs 169 crore and then Aamir Khan’s Hindi version of Thugs of Hindostan could just about reach Rs 145 crore. Now that Zero has not even made it to the Rs 100 crore club, it pretty much tells the tale.

This is what makes things further interesting since audiences instead chose to give the Hindi version of Kannada film KGF much better chance. When it came face to face with Zero, no one even considered it as a worthy enough competitor. However, the first surprise was when the film managed to score over Rs 2 crore on its first day of release. Ever since then it has been an upwards and onwards journey for the film with Rs 33 crore collected in two weeks.

The film with Yash as the leading man has emerged as a semi-hit in the Hindi version across the country. As for the Mumbai belt, the film has actually turned out to be a solid hit with a greater share of business coming from this region.

Directed by Prashanth Neil, this action entertainer has dark and violent elements to it and still is bringing in footfalls. As things stand today, the film is aiming for a Rs 40 crore lifetime and that would be more than satisfactory result for this Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani presentation.

While Chapter 1 of KGF has been released so far, one waits to see when does its sequel arrive at the big screen. Rest assured, the makers would be planning its campaign well and audiences too would be waiting with much enhanced enthusiasm to check out what the film has to offer.

Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources

(Joginder Tuteja is a trade expert and film critic, and loves to talk and write about anything that is related to films. Views are personal)