Red Chillies Entertainment, the production house behind ‘Jawan’, yesterday urged audiences to shun piracy and watch the new Shah Rukh Khan film in theatres.

The banner, founded by Shah Rukh and his wife Gauri Khan, shared the appeal on its official X page a day before the release of the pan-India film directed by Atlee.

“Say No to Piracy. Say No to Spoilers. Watching ‘JAWAN’ in cinemas. If you find any links, please report to copyright@redchillies.com. Book your tickets now,” Red Chillies Entertainment said in the post, according to a report filed by PTI from Mumbai.

Meanwhile, with a 5 am show in Kolkata, a 6 am one in Jaipur and tickets flying off the proverbial shelf, ‘Jawan’ is set to break the opening day figures of SRK’s ‘Pathaan’ with insiders pegging day one earnings at Rs 65-70 crore.

‘Jawan’, a pan-India thriller that releases today, is off to a great start with 750,000 tickets already being booked, online ticket booking platform BookMyShow said yesterday, as per a PTI report from New Delhi.

“Out of the 10 lakh capacity on opening day, we’ve sold about 25 per cent of the tickets, which is like 2.5 lakh tickets sold for Thursday across PVR INOX (screens). It is a very big number and early estimates suggest that it can be bigger than ‘Pathaan‘,” PVR-INOX Ltd Executive Director Sanjeev Kumar Bijli told PTI.

“People are saying that this will be an opening day of Rs 65 to 70 crore, which is bigger than ‘Pathaan’. The opening day figure for ‘Pathaan’ was Rs 55 crore. So hopefully it will be bigger than ‘Pathaan’,” he added.

‘Pathaan’ was a blockbuster, with reported earnings of Rs 1,050 crore. ‘Jawan’, described by makers as a high-octane thriller outlining “the emotional journey of a man who is set to rectify the wrongs in the society”, could outdo that.

Also starring Vijay Sethupathi and Nayanthara, the film, releasing in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, premieres at a time Bollywood theatrical releases — most recent being ‘Gadar 2’ and ‘OMG 2’ — are raking it in.

Mumbai-based trade expert Komal Nahta agreed with Biji’s estimate. “The situation is crazy across single-screen theatres and multiplexes both. It is difficult to predict the business. It will at least do Rs 70 crore on day one (in India),” Nahta told PTI.

In Delhi, the film releases ahead of the G20 Summit on September 9-10 with several heads of state, including US President Joe Biden, set to attend the event. While the city will remain open during the weekend, restrictions will be imposed on a small part of the central Delhi area.

 

Bijli said he is not worried about the theatrical business taking a hit in central Delhi because of G20 restrictions. It would mean four PVR theatres — PVR Plaza, Rivoli, Odeon and ECX Chanakyapuri — shut during the summit.

“They are single screen theatres with a total capacity of about 2,000 seats so that really wouldn’t have much of an impact because the loss for that will be compensated by the fact that Delhi has a four-day weekend,” he said.

About 30-35 per cent of the film’s business will come from the South, which again is bigger than the numbers made by ‘Pathaan’ “, added Bijli.

The buzz around ‘Jawan’ is also high in south India as a majority of the cast and crew hail from the region, said Chennai-based trade analyst Ramesh Bala.

As screens open up for advance bookings in various cities, the Tamil and Telugu versions of the film are also seeing enthusiastic support although the Hindi version is naturally taking the lead, Ashish Saksena, COO- Cinemas, BookMyShow, said in a statement.

Vijay Dhar, the owner of Srinagar’s INOX Cinema theatre, hopes ‘Jawan’ is able to replicate the success of ‘Pathaan’.