Karan Johar's Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya (Dulhaniya) has received decent opening at the Indian box office on the first day. The Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt starrer is set to be the third biggest opener of 2017.
Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya is a sequel to 2014's Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania and the success of the prequel had created lot of hype for the movie. But its pre-release buzz failed to get it a good amount of advance booking for the opening day. The movie was released in over 1,700 cinemas with 10,000 shows per day in India on March 10.
The Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt starrer witnessed decent amount of footfalls in the morning shows in the domestic market. Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya registered an average of 40 percent occupancy in the morning shows and its business improved in the matinee shows.
The Shashank Khaitan-directed romantic comedy film has bagged positive response from the audience, who are bowled over by the story with a message, Varun-Alia's chemistry and good music. The trends on BookMyShow are also changing as the advance booking picked up pace after the first show got over.
The word-of-mouth is expected to boost the collection of Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya in the afternoon and evening shows. Taran Adarsh tweeted: "#BadrinathKiDulhania starts very well. If it maintains the same pace - or gets better in evening - expect a SOLID Day 1."
As per early trends, Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya is likely to collect over Rs 12 crore nett at the Indian box office on the first day. The movie is set to beat the record of Kaabil, which collected Rs 10.43 crore in domestic market on its first day, and become the third biggest Bollywood opener of 2017, after Raees (Rs 20.42 crore) and Jolly LLB 2 (Rs 13.20 crore).