Happy New Year is amongst the grandest movies Bollywood has ever witnessed. Featuring Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan and others, the movie has a reputation at the box office, which is hard to ignore. Out of all, it’s the record of highest day 1 for which the movie will be remembered for years to follow.
Happy New Year saw a reunion of flamboyant filmmaker Farah Khan and SRK for the third time after the super success of Main Hoon Na (2004) and Om Shaanti Om (2007). With a successful Jodi coming back, the expectations and pre-release buzz were really high for the movie. On top of that, it had sensational actress Deepika Padukone, who had already delivered blockbuster hits like Chennai Express and Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela.
Happy New Year followed the tradition of being a big Diwali release for Shah Rukh Khan as it opened on Govardhan Puja (a day after Diwali), 2014. Govardhan Puja is usually important from a box office point of view as after doing rituals of the festival, the family audience comes out in big numbers. As expected, the advance booking was on-point in big cities and above expectations in some major markets.
Coming fresh from the success of Chennai Express, Shah Rukh Khan’s another comic caper saw an ‘open arms reception’ from the audience (no matter what critics had to say). The movie clocked an unbelievable number of 44.97 crores, thus recording Bollywood’s highest opening day back then. At that time, it had surpassed Aamir Khan’s Dhoom 3’s record for the highest opening day. Dhoom 3 had a day 1 of 33.42 crores (2013).
Interestingly, no one ever expected that Happy New Year would manage to keep the highest day 1 record to its name for over 4 years. The movie topped the charts from October 2014 to November 2018. It was Aamir Khan’s Thugs Of Hindostan that toppled Shah Rukh Khan‘s magnum opus at the box office. Thugs had an earth-shattering start of 50.75 crores. It too opened on Govardhan Puja in 2018.
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