Advance Booking for Shah Rukh Khan's 'Happy New Year' Starts with a Bang in India

The advance booking for Shah Rukh Khan's film "Happy New Year" kicked off on Wednesday at the box office. Yash Raj Films, which acquired the distribution rights of the film, opened the pre-booking counter two days before release.

The musical heist drama directed by Farah Khan is one of the most awaited films and biggest release of 2014.

"Happy New Year" is Shah Rukh's first film of the year and is also his much awaited film after "Chennai Express" and hence the hype about the movie is immense on social media.

But moviegoers were left disappointed when YRF delayed the advance booking of the tickets. YRF stalled the advance booking as it had to receive advance amount from cinemas in Mumbai.

Nevertheless, the pre-booking counter, which generally opens five days before its release date, opened on Wednesday.

And as expected, the advance booking response of "Happy New Year" is massive. The response from morning shows is low, but the evening and nights shows are going houseful.

The response is humungous in Mumbai, Gujarat, West Bengal, Delhi and other regions of the country. At several theaters, the opening day tickets have been sold out completely within hours of the pre-booking counter opening.

Detailed report on advance booking, opening day occupancy and ticket rates of the film will be revealed tomorrow.

"Happy New Year" is a musical heist drama with almost 184 minutes of run time. Despite being one of the lengthiest films of the year, the film has opened to around 5000 screens in India.

Directed by Farah, the film features SRK, Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Boman Irani, Sonu Sood and Vivaan Shah. The film, produced by SRK, will release on Friday, 24 October worldwide.