Bollywood asianculturevulture vibes: ‘Dhurandhar – The Revenge’ global box office smash
As another blockbuster ‘Toxic: A Fairytale for Grown-Ups’ backs out of the March race at the last hour, ‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’ continues its runaway success with US Bollywood cinemagoers hitting Indian film screening movie theatres there, like never before…our monthly column rakes over the stats…
By Rodrigues C
MUMBAI is getting hotter and we are still in March. Earlier this month, the festive season here kick-started with Holi.
As usual Bollywood too soaked in the fun. New parents Katrina Kaif and Vicky Kaushal celebrated with family – the latter’s brother Sunny Kaushal and the former’s sister Isabelle Kaif participated. Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar hosted actors Urmila Matondkar, Ali Fazal, Richa Chadha and Divya Dutta, and designer Manish Malhotra at their suburban pad.
Soha Ali Khan celebrated Holi with her husband Kunal Kemmu and friend Neha Dhupia.
Randeep Hooda, Kriti Sanon, Varun Dhawan and Ranbir Kapoor were also in the news for celebrating Holi.
Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn Suniel Shetty and Kareena Kapoor greeted fans on social media. Devgn shared a funny ‘Golmaal 3’ clip, while Aki’s (Akshay Kumar) Holi message was linked to his upcoming film ‘Bhooth Bangla‘.
Bachchan’s message was simply ‘Ek Shaant Holi‘ which translates to quiet Holi; he also shared pictures of sweets synonymous with the festival. The veteran actor’s quiet Holi could also be because of the loss of his friend Dharmendra in November, 2025.
Bollywood has not seen anything like it before…
And so now to all the conquering ‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’
It released in theatres on December 5, 2025 and its sequel ‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’ hit screens on March 19, a little more than three months later.
Rarely do movie sequels release within such a short span of each other, especially those that are box office successes. Centred around an Indian spy, Jasikirat Singh Rangi (Ranveer Singh), who is deeply enconsed in criminal networks in Karachi (Lyari), the film mixes real life events with a fictionalised nobody to Godfather tale, as Hamza Ali Mazari works his way up the chain of command. The four-hour plus film has divided some who claim it is propaganda, while others warm to the production, with many distinguished Indian direcrectors praising its cinematic qualities.
The first edition premiered on Netflix on January 30, which was also much earlier for a film of this magnitude. Probably director Aditya Dhar had something else in mind and it worked for him.
The film has made Dhar the most talked about Bollywood name is recent times.
In fact, before the release of the second instalment, the media was flooded with stories of Dhar. There were even articles about Bollywood “waiting for Dhar to fail” or about “hating” him.
Post the release of the sequel, even politicians are using the film’s name to gain mileage.
The numbers of Dhurandhar 2, unofficially as we will refer to it, speak for themselves. Even before the film officially released in cinemas, its box office generating previews from more than 11,000 shows a day prior collected, £3.44 million.
Day one saw a massive haul of £9.68m. On day three and day four, a Saturday and Sunday, the collections shot to £11.06m and £11.22m. By the end of the film’s first week box office run, it had already minted a cool £50.4m.
Its second Saturday and Sunday saw collections of £5.76m and £6.48m.
Along with its international earnings, which includes £3m in the UK, the film’s booty now stands at £108m. It’s now crossed the ₹500 crore (£40m) and ₹1000 crore (£80m) mark globally in the least amount of time.
It has overtaken the first instalment’s collections of £104.5m. Both films are reputed to have cost around £37m.
The US figures are staggering in themselves – $21m (£16.4m), this Singh-Arjun Rampal-R Madhavan-Sanjay Dutt starrer is now the highest grossing Indian film in north America, breaking the £14.88m record of ‘Baahubali 2’, which is the highest grossing Indian movie with earnings of £143m.
The other big money spinner of the month was supposed to be the March 19 release ‘Toxic: A Fairytale for Grown-Ups’. But on March 4, the film’s actor-producer Yash surprised everyone by announcing that the movie will now be released on June 4.
He cited the on-going war in the middle east for the sudden change of dates. Along with Indian languages, the £48-56m budgeted film, will be released in English as well to target western audiences.
‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’ surely benefitted from the last minute change of release dates of ‘Toxic: A Fairytale for Grown-Ups’.
Yash’s last theatrical outing ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ hit screens in 2022 and the wait for Yash fans has now gotten longer.
Other releases in March such as ‘The Kerala Story’ director Sudipto Sen’s ‘Charak: Fair of Faith’ and ‘Na Jaane Kaun Aa Gaya’ failed to resonate with the audiences.
As for April, there is Aki’s ‘Bhooth Bangla’, which is directed by Priyadarshan. The film was scheduled for an April 10 release but it been rescheduled to April 17 to avoid ‘Dhurandhar 2’.
The other biggies of the month are the Mahesh Narayanan directorial Malayalam espionage thriller ‘Patriot’, featuring stars Mammootty, Mohanlal, Fahadh Faasil and Kunchacko Boban on April 23, and Ram Charan-Janhvi Kapoor sports drama ‘Peddi’ on April 30. Then there is the Malayalam movie ‘Pallichattambi’ with well-known Tovino Thomas and ‘Dacoit’ with Mrinal Thakur on April 10.
For the big movie releases to succeed in April, ‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’ has to run out of steam and we don’t know if that will happen.
We surely wish the April releases luck.
See you all next month and see if we are still writing about ‘Dhurandhar – The Revenge’ – clocking up yet more ticket sales?
