With 50 per cent seating capacity, Radhe, still most wanted bhai

Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai

Salman Khan fans received their Eidi as Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai, originally scheduled as a 2020 Eid offering, hit the marquee yesterday. While it had a hybrid release in India, the Prabhudheva-directed actioner opened in over 800 screens across the world. Though cinemas in the UAE - one of Khan's strongholds - are operating at 50 per cent seating capacity, trade analyst Ramesh Bala says that avid fans are flocking to the theatres for their date with the superstar. "Going by the early figures, the film appears to have opened well. There hasn't been a big release in a while. Plus, it is a festival release," explains Bala.

The movie marks a big-budget Bollywood release over a year after Ajay Devgn's Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior, which opened in January 2020. Though Mumbai Saga and Roohi released worldwide this March, the films' international earnings were marred due to the second wave of the pandemic in the UAE. Trade analyst Vishek Chauhan says, "Radhe is looking at a day-one collection of approximately $4,00,000 worldwide. To their credit, the makers have taken the film wide. Mumbai Saga or Roohi didn't track as much in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] market." In a round of number-crunching, he adds that the film has released in over 64 locations with over 800 shows in the UAE, and in 29 locations in Saudi Arabia. "It's the widest release a Bollywood film has ever seen in the Middle East. But the film is primarily designed for Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It would have held strong in those places."

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800+
No of screens in which Radhe opened