'Sultan' of box office collections: Salman Khan-starrer earns Rs 180 crore in five days

As the first weekend box office collections of Salman Khan’s Sultan are being tallied, the verdict is in: It is officially among the top-grossing films of 2016 so far. While trade sources had predicted that Sultan would have a 150-crore first week collection, the film had crossed the 100-crore mark within three days of its release on 6 July. Helped no doubt by the public holidays over Wednesday and Thursday for Eid, the festive mood resulted in greater footfalls for the Salman starrer than usual. On its opening day (6 July), trade reports said Sultan brought in around Rs 34-36 crore. By Monday, 11 July, trade experts pegged the Sultan collections at a little over Rs 180 crore. [caption id=“attachment_2886828” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Salman Khan in and as ‘Sultan’[/caption] With its phenomenal box office run, Sultan has crossed — although not by a very wide margin — the three-day earnings of Salman’s own previous films, Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo and Bajrangi Bhaijaan, both from 2015 (they earned Rs 101 and 102 crores respectively, in their first three days at the theatres; Sultan earned Rs 105.34 crore, according to The Indian Express). Dhoom 3 and Happy New Year are the other films that crossed Rs 100 crore mark in the same duration. Sultan is now the third film to enter the ‘100-crore club’ of Bollywood’s releases for 2016. Housefull 3 and Airlift are the previous two. Trade website KoiMoi.com reported that Sultan’s earnings had stayed in the vicinity of Rs 30 crore — across each of the five days since its release. It was said that Yash Raj Films, the producers for Sultan, had already seen box office collections a little over Rs 180 crore. In Pakistan, the film has done a business of around Rs 15 crore in its first week, reported PTI. It is now expected that Sultan will cross the Rs 200 crore mark within another three days. However, it remains to be seen if it will manage to unseat PK as the highest grossing Bollywood film. PK, in 2014, is estimated to have done a business of Rs 700 crore (worldwide gross), followed by Bajrangi Bhaijaan at 600+ crores, with Baahubali, Dhoom 3 and Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo rounding off the top-five at 600, 542 and 431 crores in box office earnings, respectively. Salman has not had a single flop since 2010’s Dabangg. Jai Ho was his only film that didn’t get the super-hit or blockbuster tag, doing business of Rs 112 crores. Here’s the box office report card for Sultan — and how it compares to other Salman Khan blockbusters, by the numbers: