Welcome To The Jungle Is A Hit

Welcome To The Jungle enjoys an exciting opening weekend, with a box office collection of Rs 67 crore* (Rs 670 million).IMAGE: Jacqueline Fernandez, Rajpal Yadav, Paresh Rawal, Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Shreyas Talpade, Tusshar Kapoor and Arshad Warsi in Welcome To The Jungle.Key PointsWelcome To The Jungle is set to become a hit.This is the second Akshay Kumar-starrer, after Bhooth Bangla, to do so well at the box office.The film is enjoying a positive word-of-mouth. More than two months after the release of Bhooth Bangla, Bollywood finally has a hit at hand. Interestingly, both films are spearheaded by Akshay Kumar. Last weeks release Welcome To The Jungle has not just opened well but is also seeing a very good trajectory, all set to becoming a clean hit.The last few months have seen movie releases, which have scored in the Rs 60-70 crore (Rs 600-700 million) range, entirely missing the Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) club.In fact, many films have folded up under the Rs 10 crore (Rs 100 million) mark. Amongst the recent films, only Cocktail 2 has an opportunity to reach Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion).This is what makes Welcome To The Jungle really exciting as in its opening weekend itself, the film has come close to Rs 67 crore* (Rs 670 million). Thats impressive because it's far ahead of even Bhooth Bangla, which had a first weekend of Rs 54.50 crore (Rs 545 million). The entire first week total of that film was Rs 79.75 crore (Rs 797.5 million) and that number will be crossed by Welcome To The Jungle by Tuesday itself.Directed by Ahmed Khan, the film starring 32 stars including Akshay, Suniel Shetty, Raveena Tandon, Arshad Warsi, Jacqueline Fernandez, Disha Patani, Aftab Shivdasani and Johnny Lever, has been well received by the critics as well as the audience, and the word-of-mouth on ground is positive too.While the entry to the Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) club will take place this week itself, and Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.5 billion) will be crossed in a jiffy, what matters is an entry into the Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) club.*Estimates.Note: All collections as per various box office sources.Photograph curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff