With Dabangg 3 entering the 100 Crore Club, Salman Khan now has 15 of his films achieving this feat. While he is the only superstar to boast of this accomplishment, the fact also remains that the Prabhudeva directed film is pretty much lower down the order if one compares this with other Salman Khan biggies.
Over the years, Salman Khan has enjoyed a superb run with many of his hits, superhits and blockbusters in 100 Crore, 200 Crore and 300 Crore Club. In fact two of his films [Sultan, Tiger Zinda Hai] have entered the 200 Crore Club in just one week while an astonishing 10 films of his have entered the 100 Crore Club in the same time period.
This is the reason why even though Dabangg 3 too gone ahead of the century mark in a matter of just seven days, it looks much lesser when compared to majority of other biggies which have occupied these charts. There are films like Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Bharat and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo far ahead of Dabangg 3 as they have even crossed the 150 crores milestone in just one week. In fact much maligned Race 3 also managed to do that and just fell short with a first week billing of 144.50 crores.
In fact the only films which scored over 100 crores in the first week and are behind Dabangg 3 after one week are Bodyguard (which released more than 8 years back), Tubelight (which was a completely rejected film) and Dabangg 2 (which released 7 years back).
Let’s take a look at the first week numbers of the last 15 Salman Khan starrers and how they turned out to be in comparison with Dabangg 3:
Sultan – 208.82 crores
Tiger Zinda Hai – 206.04 crores
Bajrangi Bhaijaan – 184.62 crores
Bharat – 167.6 crores
Prem Ratan Dhan Payo – 165.45 crores
Kick – 164.21 crores
Race 3 – 144.5 crores
Ek Tha Tiger – 137.15 crores
Dabangg 3 – 125 crores
Bodyguard – 115 crores
Tubelight – 106.86 crores
Dabangg 2 – 106.6 crores
Jai Ho – 87.59 crores
Dabangg – 80 crores
Ready – 69 crores
As can be seen, Dabangg 3 is pretty much an aberration when its first week is compared with the other newer biggies in the list. Of course, protests did result in 10-15 crores been chopped off from the eventual total that Dabangg 3 could have managed after first week. Still, if one compares collections with other biggies in the list, even with no disturbances Dabangg 3 would have at maximum managed to go past the lifetime sum of Race 3.
Nonetheless, the fact also remains that this one is also the classic case of ‘great power-great responsibility’. For majority of other stars and superstars in the country, even the sum earned by Dabangg 3 would have been a reason good enough to pop the champagne. However, when an actor is a superstar and is used to reigning from the top, one does expect a far higher score one film after another. Perhaps, Salman Khan and Prabhudeva’s Eid 2020 release Radhe would do the trick!