The Raja Saab advance booking: Prabhas film sells 5 lakh tickets, just one-third of Kalki 2898 AD, half of Salaar

The Raja Saab advance bookings started slow but then picked up late on Thursday, indicating a strong but not record-breaking start for the Prabhas film.

The Raja Saab advance booking: Prabhas is back in theatres this weekend with his horror comedy, The Raja Saab, marking the actor's return to the family entertainer genre after years of starring in mass-action films. Even as there is immense buzz for the film in the Telugu states, its pan-India appeal is slightly lost. The film’s advance booking numbers indicate that it is expected to have a strong opening, largely driven by the original language version.

Prabhas plays the lead role in Maruthi's horror comedy film The Raja Saab.

The Raja Saab vs Kalki 2898 AD vs Salaar

The Raja Saab, directed by Maruthi, is releasing in Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, and Kannada across India. By the morning of Friday, its release day, the film had sold over 5 lakh tickets for its opening day for the Telugu language version alone. The trouble is that the other four dubbed versions have sold a combined total of barely 70,000 tickets.

According to Sacnilk, The Raja Saab registered a gross of ₹15.31 crore in advance bookings for its opening day. This includes a very strong ₹14 crore gross from the Telugu version of the film. But the numbers pale in comparison to some of Prabhas’ other recent releases. Kalki 2898 AD had an advance booking gross of close to ₹30 crore in Telugu, with 11 lakh ticket sales, while Salaar did even better, at ₹39 crore (17 lakh tickets). The only promising aspect for Prabhas fans and the industry is that, being a horror comedy, The Raja Saab is expected to fare better with the family audience, which tends to rely more on spot bookings over the weekend. However, how that plays out will entirely depend on the initial reactions to the film from the neutral audience, which will shape the word of mouth.

The Raja Saab box office prediction

The advance booking sales for The Raja Saab picked up late, following its opening, which was uncharacteristically late as well. But the late surge also meant that the film will register a healthy opening in India. As of Friday morning, The Raja Saab is looking at a ₹70 crore net start in India, which would make it Prabhas’ fourth-best opening post-pandemic. All his other films in the period started over ₹85 crore.

About The Raja Saab

Directed by Maruthi, The Raja Saab is a fantasy horror starring Prabhas, alongside Sanjay Dutt, Malavika Mohanan, Boman Irani, Nidhhi Agerwal, Riddhi Kumar and Zarina Wahab. The film releases on January 9.