Dunki amassed USD 9.40 million in its four-day extended weekend overseas, which is a bit disappointing for a Shah Rukh Khan film in 2023. The conventional weekend frame i.e. Thursday to Sunday in the Gulf and Friday to Sunday elsewhere is USD 7.70 million. Combined with Rs. 124 crore weekend in India, the worldwide opening is Rs. 202 crore.
The USD 7 million plus was a big opening number five years ago, in fact even today is, but not for a Shah Rukh Khan film. Pathaan and Jawan opened with over USD 20 million in their extended weekends earlier this year. The two were larger-than-life action entertainers, so an opening similar to theirs was never expected for Dunki but the expectations were to reach around USD 12-13 million in four days and the film is 25-30 per cent short of those.
The primary factor contributing to Dunki‘s weaker-than-expected start mirrors its domestic challenges — the film struggled to generate interest through its promos & trailers, with the genre struggling in general in recent times, especially for the initial. The hope was that since the film deals with migration and NRI issues, it would connect better than the domestic market but that doesn’t seem to have happened. There is also the factor of capacity issues in some of the key collection centres in North America and Australia due to the showcasing clash with Salaar and a plethora of Christmas releases from Hollywood as the occupancies here are better than what collections may suggest. The pre-Christmas period can be a bit of a hindrance in some markets. The last two would be balanced out in the coming days, especially considering the holiday period for the next two weeks but the bigger reason is probably the first one only as the numbers are lower in other markets as well.
The best performers for the film are Germany, Australia and Canada. The first one is Shah Rukh Khan‘s clout at work as non-SRK films don’t collect this much in the full run while in the latter two, the film being set in Punjab aided the cause as these two markets have a big Punjabi diaspora. The weakest was the Middle East (that’s considering SRK starter, for a non-Khan film, these are HUGE numbers) which unlike Canada and Australia is low on Punjabi diaspora and the genre has struggled historically.
With this start, the film would probably have targeted USD 18-20 million closing but with holidays ahead, it can go above USD 20 million. The USD 25 million is probably a bit high at this point but can not be ruled out just yet.
The territorial breakdown for overseas box office collections of Dunki is as follows:
United States – USD 2,550,000
Canada – USD 750,000
Middle East – USD 2,750,000 Approx
Australia – USD 900,000
New Zealand – USD 125,000
Bangladesh – USD 125,000
Rest of Asia – USD 500,000
United Kingdom – USD 900,000
Germany – USD 300,000
Rest of Europe – USD 375,000
Rest of World – USD 150,000
Total – USD 9,425,000 / Rs. 78 crore
Note: The above numbers are with Canada gross converted from CAD to USD. Read more on the same here. In the traditional sense, the North American weekend is USD 3.55 million and the overall weekend is USD 9.70 million.
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