EXCLUSIVE! Will GOAT beat Leo to become Thalapathy Vijay's biggest opener? Trade expert spills the beans

After delivering a universal blockbuster in the form of Leo, Kollywood megastar Thalapathy Vijay is gearing up to entertain us with his dual avatar in high-octane massy-actioner The Greatest of All Time aka GOAT, which is set to hit the screens tomorrow (Thursday).

While the film is expected to be a box office spinner, Firstpost interacted with a trade expert to understand its current scenario and predictions about the Venkat Prabhu directorial.

When questioned whether GOAT has the potential to beat _Leo_ to become Thalapathy Vijay’s biggest opener, prominent trade expert Ramesh Bala replied, “I think it’s doubtful because it is lagging behind Leo in advanced booking in almost everywhere, both India and overseas. So, Leo, I think it would be doubtful. It can go near Leo. Maybe it can go up to 80% of Leo finally when the numbers come. But I doubt whether it can beat Leo because Leo was at a different height. If you look at the USA, it ended at $1.8 million or $1.9 million now GOAT is touching $1 million in the USA. So there will be further growth. Maybe it’ll end up at $1.2 million or $1.3 million or something. So even in Kerala, it is running behind, I think. So generally the pattern is Leo was a little bit more because of location LCU, the hype was little bit more and this one is slightly on the lower side.”

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When questioned, whether the dubbed Hindi version of GOAT can work in the northern part of the country, Bala responded, “Yeah, it has the potential to do well, but it’s only releasing outside the multiplexes. PVR, Inox and Cinepolis are not releasing it. So it is releasing in other screens. So it has the potential to do well. If the word of mouth is really good, it can expand and it can do better. So we have to see how the things are. It was think the same situation for Leo. It also didn’t get released in PVR, isn’t it? So it has the potential to do as well as Leo. But everything better depends on word of mouth. Yeah, on paper, yeah, it has the potential to do well. And you have another Tamil dubbed movie also releasing, but it will be a small release. Vikram’s Thangalaan is also releasing on Friday in Hindi.”

“I think both have enough number of screens and people will watch it. But I think once the word of mouth picks up, once the movie is there, I’m sure I’m expecting good growth. But since it’s not releasing in multiplexes, where a lot of people used to go to the mall and go to the multiplex, so that may be a dent. So we have to just cautiously wait and watch. But it has the potential to do well there,” he added.

GOAT also features Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Ajmal Ameer, Mohan, Jayaram, Sneha, Laila, Meenakshi Chaudhary, Vaibhav, Yogi Babu, Premgi Amaren and Yugendran in prominent roles.