 "<i>Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani</i> takes box office by storm")
YJHD, produced by Dharma Productions, collected a net of Rs 62 crore during its first weekend, from 3,000 screens. It also displaced the previous top weekend grosser, Salman Khan-starrer Dabangg 2, which was released on 3,650 screens and had collected Rs 61 crore in the first three days. YJHD is also the first Kapoor film getting such a huge response in the box office.
"YJHD has done miracles at the box office. Its highest non-holiday box office earnings, if you compare apples to apples - beats Dabangg 2. This 'badtameez blockbuster' has not only conquered audiences' hearts in India but worldwide," said Suniel Wadhwa, an independent film distributor and a trade analyst.
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The film went to collect over Rs 12 crore on Monday and today's collections are estimated to be the same. "It can easily achieve the status of Rs 100 crore in the first week itself. Overseas also, Monday was strong. The show of Star Trek in Darkness was cancelled to accommodate YJHD in Burwood Sydney, Australia," Wadhwa added.
The film is distributed by UTV Motion Pictures.
Trade experts believe the higher ticket prices also helped the film. "The ticket prices were increased in the range of Rs 20-50, which has increased the volume. The film has worked very well in multiplexes, but small single screen audience have not liked it too much, which is obvious considering it being an urban, youth-focussed film," said Shaaminder Malik, a senior film trade analyst and film distributor who focuses on the national capital region and western Uttar Pradesh.
"Ranbir has shown calibre of being the next superstar of the Indian film industry. Negative about the film is only that it is too long and gets too slow sometimes," Malik added.
Surprisingly, the film has performed well in the southern India, where generally Hindi films fail to do good business. "It's doing exceptionally well across India and even in territories like Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where Hindi film business is very limited, it has collected really well. It's being loved by everyone and we are confident it will create new benchmark at the box office," said Gaurav Verma, director-India theatrical distribution, studios, Disney UTV.
The fact that YJHD was heavily promoted also added to its box office advantage. There was a long lull period between Race 2 and YJHD and again, the next big films will be Dhoom3 and Krrish2, to be released later this year.
While this film is creating new records in the box office, it is yet to see if it can break the record of 3Idiots, which in its lifetime, collected over Rs 202 crore.