“The entire weekend for ‘Dhoom 2’, was sold out on Tuesday itself. Only five tickets are left for a Sunday eleven o clock night show which I plan to watch with my friends,” says Shonali Shrofff of Fame Group of Multiplexes. “It is undoubtedly the biggest advance booking of the year,” she added. The recent trend of advance booking starting on the Sunday instead of Wednesday has seen an unprecedented response in case of big films like ‘Fanaa’, ‘Krrish’, ‘Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna’ and ‘Don’. But if Shonali Shroff is to be believed then ‘Dhoom 2’ has broken all earlier records.

Girish S Wankhede, Manager Public Relations for Cinemax Group of Multiplexes emphatically states that all shows are totally house full. “The advance booking is tremendous,” he says. Devang Sampat, GM, Marketing and Sales, Cinemax says that the reason for such opening is the trust people have in “Mr Perfectionist” Aditya Chopra. “Moreover the starcast is such that it can’t get bigger than this,” he added.

Yashraj Films had started the trend with ‘Fanaa’ of getting a higher chunk of the ticket sales figures from the multiplexes. Vinod Chopra successfully adapted the same module with ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’. There have been rumours that Yashraj Films once again tried to get a bigger share of the pie from the multplexes before the release of ‘Dhoom 2’ but it hasn’t been verified as no one is willing to talk. This correspondent had spoken to Shonali Shroff of Fame Multiplexes a day before ‘Fanaa’ was about to be released. She had said then that Fame is still not sure about releasing ‘Fanaa’ due to the prevailing uncertainty on revenue sharing. But on being asked today if a similar situation arose with ‘Dhoom 2’ she was prompt in saying, “We have very good relations with Yashraj Films. There’s no problem at all.”

‘Dhoom 2’ is also setting another record in terms of number of screens showing the same film in a particular multiplex. You can imagine how big a release it is by the following numbers:

Fame Adlabs, Andheri: 18 shows per day

Fame Malad: 21 shows per day

Fame Kandivali: 14 shows per day

Cinemax, Versova: 20 shows

Cinemax, Sion: 8 shows

Cinemax Kandivali: 12 shows

Cinemax Mira Road: 9 shows

Cinemax Wondermall, Thane: 12 shows

Cinemax Eternity Mall: 13 shows

Cinemax, Andheri single screen: 4 shows

Cinemax Nasik: 9 shows

In a year that has seen huge money spinners like ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’, ‘Krrish’, ‘Fanaa’ and ‘Rang De Basanti’, there’s every possibility that ‘Dhoom 2’ shall be the icing on the cake of a great year for the Hindi Film Industry. Stay tuned to IndiaGlitz for the ‘Dhoom 2’ review first thing tomorrow and a video of the public opinion this weekend.