Game Changer Box Office Day 1 Advance Booking: Strong Start with 5 Lakh Tickets Sold, But Falls Short of Beating Guntur Kaaram
The anticipation for Ram Charan’s Game Changer has reached its peak with just one day to go before its grand release. While fans eagerly await the political thriller after his blockbuster RRR, the film's advance booking numbers for day 1 at the Indian box office tell a mixed story. Despite selling 5 lakh tickets and amassing significant collections, the figures fall short of the mammoth expectations tied to a project of this scale.
Advance Booking Performance
As of 10 am IST, Game Changer has sold over 5 lakh tickets, with a gross advance booking collection of ₹14.83 crores (excluding blocked seats). Nearly 8,000 shows have been listed, with the count expected to grow further. Among the states, Andhra Pradesh is the frontrunner with ₹8.72 crore in advance bookings, followed by Telangana at ₹3.06 crore and Karnataka at ₹1 crore. Tamil Nadu, surprisingly, lags behind with collections yet to cross ₹1 crore, which is unexpected considering Shankar’s involvement.
Comparison with Expectations and Guntur Kaaram
The numbers, while impressive in isolation, do not match the expectations for a collaboration between Shankar and Ram Charan. The film is projected to hit ₹20 crores in advance bookings by the end of the day, but that still leaves it far behind Mahesh Babu’s Guntur Kaaram, which grossed ₹24.90 crores in day 1 advance bookings during Sankranti.
Shankar, once a dominant name in Indian cinema, hasn’t been able to recreate his earlier buzz post-2.0. Films like Indian 2 faced setbacks, and Game Changer, though better, hasn’t managed to generate the ground-level excitement expected of a magnum opus.
Conclusion
While Game Changer is off to a promising start with strong advance booking numbers, the figures are not enough to surpass Guntur Kaaram. It remains to be seen if the film’s performance on release day can bring in the much-needed momentum and surpass expectations at the box office.