The spy thriller film Pathaan starring Shahrukh Khan and Deepika Padukone alongside John Abraham has been making waves at the box office since its release two weeks ago. The film, directed by Siddharth Anand and produced by Yash Raj Films, has already earned over Rs 800 crore globally and is now ranked seventh on the list of highest-grossing Indian films of all time. It's also the third highest-grossing Hindi film, surpassing Aamir Khan's Dangal.
The success of Pathaan has brought a much-needed boost to Hindi cinema, which had been struggling with a string of failures. While dubbed movies such as "RRR" and "KGF-2" have performed well at the box office, there had not been any true blockbusters among Hindi films until now.
Not only is "Pathaan" the biggest Hindi movie of the post-pandemic era, it's also the biggest movie of Shah Rukh Khan's career. Actor Shahid Kapoor has praised the film's success, saying that it has brought back confidence to the film industry, which had been struggling with poor business due to boycott calls.
The movie has set new records in international markets. Film critic and trade analyst Taran Adarsh has reported that the film has grossed $14.30 million in the USA and Canada, $4.15 million in the UK and Ireland, and $2.87 million in Australia.
In New Zealand, the film was released in the most number of cities ever. Pathaan has become the biggest Indian movie in New Zealand (with a collection of NZ$ 896,391) as on 7th February, beating the lifetime collection of Padmaavat ($ 714,228), Dangal($ 642,236), RRR all languages($ 354,279) and KGF2 all languages($ 456K) according to Comscore.
Pritesh Raniga of Forum Films which is the distribution partner of Pathaan in NZ says, “After a long time, we are seeing families coming to cinemas and enjoying a film together. The Shah Rukh Khan starrer has really brought families together. We experienced this kind of euphoria only when a movie is released around Diwali or Eid. The film has become a celebration without a festival.
“Success of Pathaan has benefited the theatres' ecosystem in NZ too. Many theatres have hired extra staff to cater to the increased crowd, food courts and restaurants in malls, Uber drivers and many more benefit from a successful run.”
“Thanks to Pathaan, the NZ theatre market now has much more confidence in Indian films. I hope we will see more blockbuster films from India in the coming months.”