Baahubali 2: The Conclusion China box office collection dips in second week; film's global total now at Rs 1,785 cr

Although SS Rajamouli’s mega blockbuster Baahubali 2: The Conclusion registered good opening day and weekend numbers at the Chinese box office, the film has failed to sustain the momentum it received from the initial frame. After 10 days, the movie has only earned a cumulative gross of $11.16 million (Rs 75.17 crore), taking the film’s worldwide total to a mighty Rs 1,785 crore. [caption id=“attachment_4208925” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”]  Prabhas in a still from Baahubali 2: The Conclusion. Twitter@BaahubaliMovie[/caption] In the second weekend, the film, which shattered various records at the ticket window in its home ground as well as popular offshore markets, earned a meager $0.31 million (Rs 2 crore). The movie witnessed a steep decline from the first weekend, which showed good promise. The first installment of the series, Baahubali: The Beginning, earned only a scanty lifetime total of $1.19 million and bombed at the PRC box office without any trace. During the opening weekend, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion scored the fourth biggest opening day in the Middle Kingdom with a $2.43 million day one gross — lesser than Aamir Khan's _Dangal_  ($2.55 million),  Secret Superstar  ($6.97 million) and Irrfan Khan’s  Hindi Medium  ($3.43 million). In fact, it quickly vaulted over the Rs 50 cr mark with its opening weekend gross of $7.63 million (Rs 51.21 Cr), which is lesser than the recent performances of Indian films in the mainland. Talking about the film’s surprise opening figures, Chinese box office tracker Gavin Feng told FirstPost, “I’m not sure how local distributor Huaying Tianxia see this result. The opening Baahubali 2 received was beyond expectations from local insiders and trackers. The recent string of successes for Indian films is also one of the reasons for the good opening. Dangal, Secret Superstar, Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Hindi Medium are drama-comedy type films. Baahubali 2 is a fantasy-action, a genre Chinese audiences are very much accustomed to.” While Baahubali 2: The Conclusion opened above Dwayne Johnson’s sci-fi monster thriller  Rampage  at the daily box office chart on the fourth position when it landed in China on 4 May, the latter quickly reclaimed its spot during the weekend. Now, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion has been pushed to the seventh rank in the box office table even as local holdovers such as Us and Them, A or B and Disney/Marvel’s box-office phenomenon _ Avengers: Infinity War  —_which opened in China on 11 May —are raking in the moolah at mainland cinemas. Baahubali 2 has a score of 8.7 from 50,000 users in China’s highly popular ticket-selling platform Maoyan, which has forecast the film’s lifetime revenue as 74 million yuan ($11.68 million). Baahubali 2: The Conclusion is the fourth Indian film to release in China this year after Secret Superstar, Bajrangi Bhaijaan  and Hindi Medium and the first Indian movie to bite the dust at the PRC box-office since Aamir Khan’s Dangal trumped a handful of Hollywood films in 2017 to become a box office sensation. The 10-day China gross of $11.16 million has pushed Baahubali 2’s cumulative foreign takings to $61.26 million (Rs 412 crore). Now, the movie, which pitched Prabhas and Rana Daggubati as arch rivals, will finish as the fourth highest grossing Indian film of all time in overseas markets, behind Aamir Khan’s Dangal, Secret Superstar and Salman Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Baahubali 2 is the fourth Indian film to successfully breach the $60 million mark from foreign box office receipts. It must be noted that Bajrangi Bhaijaan’s overseas gross was just $29 million before the film was embraced by PRC moviegoers in March when the film saw the light of day in the Middle Kingdom for the Lantern festival weekend on 2 March. The Kabir Khan-directed film, at the end of its month-long run in China, earned an impressive $45.3 million which powered its offshore cumulative to $74.3 million. Sources say Akshay Kumar’s satirical comedy-drama  Toilet: Ek Prem Katha  directed by Shree Narayan Singh will be the next Indian film to hit the PRC screens. The film has already cleared the  censorship process  in the world’s second largest movie market.