Dangal has taken an excellent advance across the country and by the close of business today the business of pre sales will be in the 15 crore nett range. This is less than Sultan and in a similar range to Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. Sultan had a five day long weekend as compared to three days for Dangal while Prem Ratan Dhan Payo was a four day weekend. Comparing to Prem Ratan Dhan Payo the sales at the main multiplexes chains for the weekend are higher but places like Gujarat and Rajasthan are lower. The difference is that Dangal has sales spread over the the three day period whle Prem Ratan Dhan Payo was 75% sales for day one. For dangal it is around 50% for day one. The Christmas period also sees more corporate bookings at multiplexes than a Eid or Diwali.

The advance could even be ahead of Sultan at some places by the end of today as the major multiplexes really picked up the pace on Tuesday and Wednesday and places which have more concentration of premium multiplexes could see record pre sales. The advance used to be judged by how the percentage of weekend tickets sold but with such wide releases its seems 10% is even an impossible task and this number will get lower as releases get bigger. The release of the film will be around 4000-4100 screens in Hindi which will make it the third or fourth widest release ever. There is a dubbed format in Tamil and Telugu but those markets will be hard for the film to penetrate.