Stree 2, starring Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Abhishek Banerjee, and Aparshakti Khurana, is all set to hit theatres on August 15, 2024. Directed by Amar Kaushik, this sequel to the 2018 blockbuster Stree has fans eagerly awaiting to witness the horror of s”sarkate ka aatank.” The excitement is clearly reflected in the advance ticket sales, with Stree 2 leading the pack, selling over a lakh tickets for its opening day—outperforming its competitors, Khel Khel Mein and Vedaa, which also release the same day. The Akshay Kumar and John Abraham starrer, however, is lagging in comparison, struggling to achieve strong advance bookings.
In this exciting piece of entertainment news, BollywoodLife spoke with Producer and trade expert Girish Johar to gain insights into how Stree 2 has managed to generate such impressive numbers in advance bookings. We also spoke to him about the possible records the movie might break/create.
Girish Johar told us, “Whatever the promotion materials we’ve seen for Stree 2, they have been creating a rage among the audiences. The trailer was fantastic. There are a lot of things going right at the moment for Stree 2. Right from the trailer, which has been loved. It’s a sequel to the first one, which was a blockbuster. That’s the second aspect. You have certain expectations already set in place. Then the trailer comes in, and everyone is like, ‘Wow’. Then the music also comes in and everyone is talking more. Everyone gets electric about it. Additionally, you can see that audiences are currently appreciating this genre. It’s a light comedy/horror genre that’s family-based. This genre, I feel, has had good successes in the recent past. Technically, it’s also releasing on a holiday, and the makers did open the advanced booking quite early. I think they’re making the right move. When things go right, it is decisions like these that make a huge difference. Primarily, because of this, we can see a huge advanced booking of Stree 2 rather than of Khel Khel Mein and Vedaa.”
When asked his thoughts on how the trends are 20% higher than Tiger 3 and 25% higher than Brahmastra, the trade expert stated, “Trends are there. It’s a basic human desire to ensure that all previous box office records get broken with every new film we release. So having said that, yes, previously, we have been seeing a little lull at the box office. What has also happened to be an advantage of the film is that they have announced certain paid reviews on the 14th to encash on the euphoria. That shows the confidence of the makers because they know that on the 14th night, the vacation starts. Then you have your holidays from 15th onwards. That also shows a confident rub-off by the makers because when you’re showing a paid preview on the 14th night, in a five-six-day long weekend holiday, it clearly shows that the makers are confident. But that confidence is also seen by the audiences, and we can see the advance booking for paid previews to be quite good. So all in all, I think it’s a huge start-up in the offing for Stree 2.”
The producer added, “In fact, because the advances are so good, the showcase for the other two movies is going to go haywire. The other two were commanding a certain percentage of screen time, but with this tremendous advances of Stree 2, they have little room to fight. They have to fight amongst themselves, and they have to also fight the giant film, which is Stree 2. Initially, there used to be a distribution of 60–40 when there were multiple releases. Now, even exhibitors know that Stree 2 has a big buzz, so they’ve hypothetically made it 70–30. However, the advance booking has increased so much that the 70 is turning to 80.”
The advance bookings for Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor’s Stree 2 are truly impressive, just like the movie’s songs and trailer so far. All of this buzz has certainly set the stage for a major release this Independence Day 2024 weekend. So, is the horror-comedy all set to secure a spot in the top 10 biggest pre-sales of all time? Producer, Trade expert and analyst Girish Johar believes so.
Watch a video on Rajkummar Rao
“Yeah, it can. I think it is now eyeing more than 2 lakh sales as the only national advance. Two lakh ticket sales as advances on national change. So I’m pretty confident that it will go for the top 10 of our all-time pre-sales,” added Girish Johar.
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