Chennai Express creates history, crosses 100 crore mark within 3 days of its release

This Eid was a huge bonanza for global cine-goers, thanks to Shah Rukh Khan-starrer latest Bollywood blockbuster Chennai Express. The train has been running on time, rather much before time, in Indian as well as international markets. It has broken all records and has joined the elite Rs. 100 crore club within three days of its release.

Taran Adarsh tweeted, “And the records lie shattered! #ChennaiExpress hits a ton [100 cr] at the close of its opening weekend. Creates HISTORY!” In the national market, the film opened to a net box office earning of $5.42 million (INR331 million) on its debut day and the 2-day figure counted to $11.0 million (INR675 million). Both the figures were strong enough in beating the previous records of Aamir Khan-starrer 3 Idiots. Gaurav Verma, director of India theatrical distribution studios, Disney UTV, stated, “Though ‘CE’ is playing in the highest number of screens for any film, we still ran out of capacity in most locations due to this huge demand at the box office and the film is on its way to create new benchmarks.”

In the international markets too the film’s numbers have been soaring with every day. On Thursday the film grossed $1.29 million, crushed by $2.3 million on Friday. In several international provinces paid previews were arranged on Thursday ahead of its full release. According to some distribution sources, North America grossed around $260,000 on Thursday and $683,000 more on Friday. In U.K. the film grossed $228,000 (GBP144,000) on Thursday and $422,000 (GBP267,000) on Friday. In the gulf region too the numbers have been estimated as $525,000 on Thursday and $600,000 on Friday. Amrita Pandey, executive director of international distribution studios at Disney UTV said, “’Chennai Express’ is setting new opening day and paid preview records and benchmarks in most countries. In many cinema chains we’ve added shows and the movie was moved to additional screens and to highest capacity screens.” Now inevitably, Chennai Express is all set to reach the Rs. 150 crore milestone as time passes by.