Kamal Ghorui
Sunny Deol’s Border 2 has registered a surprisingly strong opening in North America, a territory historically indifferent to the star’s filmography. As per early evening estimates, the film has grossed around USD 360,000 from the North American market, placing it firmly on track to challenge the Day 1 benchmark set by Ranveer Singh and Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar, which opened to USD 522,000 earlier this quarter. With prime-time shows still ahead, theatrical trackers note that Border 2 has a realistic chance of finishing Day 1 in the USD 500K+ range.What makes the surge more intriguing is that Sunny Deol has never been an overseas-driven star in the traditional Bollywood sense. Unlike Shah Rukh Khan, Ranveer Singh or Akshay Kumar or Prabhas — whose fan bases are deeply entrenched in the US, UK and Australia, Sunny Deol’s pull has historically skewed domestic, mass and North India-centric. Meanwhile, in India, the film has opened on a muscular note, benefiting from wide release strategy, nationalistic sentiment and nostalgia attached to the original Border (1997). The film on its first day has collected Rs 30 crore as per Sacnilk. It is a huge start for the Republic day weekend but for many it has fallen short of expectations as Trade was expecting the film to open to Rs 35 to Rs 40 crore mark. The shortfall could have happened because of the confusion about the early morning shows as its was being stated that shows are being cancelled because the content hasn’t been delivered because of technical issues.The dual-market performance signals that Border 2 may have broader commercial legs than anticipated and now all eyes are going to be on the next 3 days which includes the 26th January Republic Day holiday. The film is directed by Anurag Singh and also features Varun Dhawan, Diljit Dosanjh, Ahan Shetty, Mona Singh, Sonam Bajwa, Anya Singh and Medha Rana.
