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Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Jawan has raced up the UAE box office charts, leaving Rajnikanth’s Jailer in the dust to emerge as the biggest money-spinner of 2023.
The Bollywood blockbuster, out now in cinemas, has earned $6.78 million at the UAE box office since its September 7 release, beating the lifetime earnings of Jailer ($6.44 million) and Khan’s earlier cinematic outing, Pathaan ($6.01 million).
Numbers released by movie receipts aggregator, Box Office Mojo, has also seen Jawan beat some of the biggest Hollywood productions of the year in the UAE, including the Tom Cruise-led Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which earned $5.9 million and $5.8 million respectively.
Jawan has already broken multiple box office records in India, while achieving similar feats in the UAE to beat movies like Avengers: Endgame and The Fate of the Furious to emerge as the second biggest revenue earner in the country in the last 10 years. The 2019 Keanu Reeves-starrer John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum currently holds the top spot for that period with $7.61 million in UAE earnings.
Official numbers released by Yash Raj Films and Phars Films, the Middle East distributors of Jawan, reveal the movie recorded a total of 395,858 admissions in the first week, with the movie screening across the UAE in multiple languages.
Numbers proved strong for the movie’s Saudi Arabia release as well, with over 90,000 admissions recorded in the first week of release, earning the film $1.13 million at the kingdom’s box office. The distributors have also confirmed that the movie’s total earnings for its first week, across the GCC, Iraq, Djibouti and Palestine, have crossed $8.24 million.
Global collections
In terms of global collections, the movie directed by Atlee is expected to cross 4 billion Indian rupees ($48.2 million) by this weekend, across all languages, according to industry tracker Sacnilk Entertainment. The aggregator, which tallies box office receipts of Indian films, has forecast Jawan to cross Rs 4.7 billion by day 10 of its release.
The multi-generational action-thriller, which also stars South Indian stars Nayanthara and Vijay Sethupati, along with Deepika Padukone in a special cameo, has been produced by Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment.
After a lack-lustre Bollywood box office since COVID-19 restrictions were lifted this year, August and September have proven to be big-ticket earners for cinemas following the success of movies such as Gadar 2, starring Sunny Deol, Jailer, the Akshay Kumar-led OMG 2, and now Jawan.
Now all eyes are on Khan’s next release Dhunki, which is slated to release in December.
(Reporting by Bindu Rai, editing by Brinda Darasha)
bindu.rai@lseg.com