Director Sujeeth's Saaho has shattered the collection record of Prabhas' historical blockbuster Baahubali 2 at the Nizam box office on the first day and become the all-time biggest opening movie in this region.
After seeing the massive hype, Dil Raju acquired its theatrical rights for Nizam for a fancy price of Rs 40 crore and made grand arrangements for its release in a bid to cash in on Prabhas mania. The distributor booked over 525 screens in 450 cinema halls in this area. It had more than 2,300 shows including 1160+ shows in Hyderabad city alone. It is the highest number for any movie released ever in history.
The Sujeeth-directed movie had a massive amount of advance booking for its opening day. Saaho ran to packed houses in most of the cinema halls in Nizam on Friday and its average occupancy stood at over 95 percent. The film has collected over Rs 12 crore gross at the Nizam box office on the first day of its release.
After seeing the hype and advance booking, the trade experts in film nagar predicted that Saaho would earn Rs 10 crore for its distributor on its opening day. But the Prabhas and Shraddha Kapoor starrer movie has earned Rs 9.40 crore for Dil Raju on its opening day and missed the double-digit mark with a small margin. But it has beaten the record of Baahubali 2, which earned Rs 8.90 crore share for its distributors on its first day.
Saaho is the next release of Prabhas after Baahubali 2 the success of which had generated a massive hype for his latest release. The movie stood taller than the latter in almost all the aspects like budget, hype, promotion, screen count and advance booking. Hence, it was expected to shatter all its record on the opening day.
Saaho has collected approximately Rs 135 crore gross at the worldwide box office on the first day and earned nearly Rs 80 crore for its distributors, who have invested Rs 290 crore on its global theatrial rights. But the movie has failed to beat the record of Baahubali 2, which minted Rs 214 crore on its opening day.