Akshay Kumar is back with comedy after a string of socially relevant film and fans have been waiting for it. His return to comedy happened with Priyadarshan’s ‘Bhooth Bangla’ and now the third installment of ‘Welcome’ is set to release this Friday. According to the advance bookings, one can expect the opening of ‘Welcome To the Jungle’ to be better than ‘Bhooth Bangla’.Advance bookings for the film got off to a slow start but picked up significantly closer to release. According to Sacnilk, by 2 PM on Thursday, less than a day before the film’s release, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ had sold around 53,000 tickets in advance for its opening day, generating approximately Rs 1.26 crore in gross collections. The film has also seen encouraging sales for its paid previews and opening weekend shows. On BookMyShow, ticket sales were reportedly moving at a rate of nearly 4,000 tickets per hour on Thursday afternoon, indicating growing interest among moviegoers.With this, one can expect more advance numbers in advance bookings till Thursday night, but largely, the film will depend on spot bookings which come after word of mouth once the reviews start coming in on Friday morning. An opening day number of more than Rs 10 crore will be good for the film, and that is what even the trade predicts. The paid previews may contribute Rs 3 to 3.5 crore to the opening day number. But the film will eventually be able to see growth through positive reviews which should show in the Saturday and Sunday numbers.Akshay Kumar’s previous release, ‘Bhooth Bangla’, had opened at Rs 16 crore, including Rs 3.75 crore from paid previews. Going by current trends, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ appears well-positioned to at least match that figure and potentially surpass it comfortably.The film also enjoys the advantage of a relatively uncluttered release window. We have ‘Cocktail 2’ and Imtiaz Ali’s ‘Main Vaapas Aaunga’ currently running in theatres and both may see a drop in numbers if ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ gets good reviews and gives them competition. One had seen how the numbers of ‘Main Vaapas Aaunga’ saw growth through positive word of mouth while ‘Cocktail 2’ crossed Rs 100 crore worldwide on Thursday. Will both these movies continue to sustain even with the release of ‘Welcome To The Jungle’? Time will tell. But for now, the shows of the these movies will surely reduce as the fresh Friday release will get more windows.Directed as a madcap comedy adventure, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ boasts a massive ensemble cast featuring Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Raveena Tandon, Arshad Warsi, Paresh Rawal, Jackie Shroff, Tusshar Kapoor, Jacqueline Fernandez, Lara Dutta and Disha Patani, among several others.
