Pathaan: After four years of hiatus, Shah Rukh Khan takes Kolkata theatres by storm

Shah Rukh Khan is all set to return to the big screen after four years and his Kolkata fans are going all set to celebrate in style ever since the advance ticket booking counter opened on January 20. From single-screen theatres to the city’s prime multiplexes – the first-day shows are almost in a choc-a-bloc condition. The earliest show of Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, and John Abraham-starrer action spy thriller starts at around 7 am. Even the earliest shows are almost houseful.  

Ujjal Biswas of PVR termed it an SRK Tsunami. “Out of our four properties, we started with 10 shows each. However, soon as the booking began, we had to make it 15 shows per property on average. Our earliest show starts at 8 am and the last show is at 11 pm. On the first day, every show is going to be houseful. We have sold 90% of the tickets for January 25 – the opening day. 

The single screens too are seeing overwhelming sales for the first day. “We have nine shows at Ajanta and all the first-day shows are houseful. The second-day shows are also fast filling and should be houseful in no time,” said Satadeep Saha of Ajanta Cinema. 

Priya Cinema’s Arijit Dutta, who is busy shooting in Sikkim with Arindam Sil, said, “It is a fabulous opening for us. We have five shows. The first show is houseful and the other four are fast filling. The second day will be houseful too.” 

Meanwhile, the ongoing Bengali films are bearing the brunt of the SRK-mania. The number of shows for Dev’s Projapati, Kaushik Ganguly’s Kaberi Antardhan, Arindam Sil’s Maayakumari, and several others will be affected by the rage. “But what to do? I am a businessman,” said Arijit.

On the other hand, Satadeep confirmed that Projapati has secured one show at 3 pm at his theatre. “We have struggled a lot in the past two years of Covid 19. Pathaan is giving a lot of hope to the exhibitors,” he said.