Hrithik Roshan's War 2 vs Rajnikanth's Coolie: Which film will cross the ₹200 cr-mark first?

As the Independence Day weekend came to a close with heated duel between War 2 and Coolie, the question of which film will be successful is no longer pertinent as both the films crossed ₹100 crore within two days of their release on August 14. The bigger question that now prevails is which films will secure a bigger box office collection. And for this question, there is a closer milestone to be reached – that of ₹200 crore.

War 2 amassed ₹174.11 crore over the weekend as of Day 5 early estimates, according to the data provided by box office collection data provider Sacnilk.

The movie directed by Ayan Mukerji is another addition to the spy universe Yash Raj Films owns. The movie features Hrithik Roshan, NTR Jr., Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana, and Anil Kapoor in key roles.

As of Sunday, War 2 had just 33.09% theatre occupancy, with the highest occupancy levels in evening, followed by afternoon and night shows.

Across cities, most metros saw the occupancy levels dip with levels ranging between 30-50% in cities such as Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Meanwhile, Coolie amassed a whopping ₹193.65 crore over the long weekend, making this Rajnikanth-starrer film a clear winning candidate for the ₹200 crore mark position. While higher occupancy levels that remain well above 50% across cities and across shows is the reason of a buoyant box office collection, the real reason remains the Thalaivva craze in Tier-2 cities of the South. According to Sacnilk, cities such as Madurai, Trichy, Coimbatore, Puducherry have seen theatre occupancy levels as high as 80% on Sunday. This is also because there are barely any shows for War 2 or other alternate films against Coolie in such towns. Chennai has a whopping 1053 shows of Coolie, followed by Bangalore at 714, and Coimbatore with 355 shows.

Coolie, directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj under the Sun Pictures banner, stars Rajinikanth, Nagarjuna Akkineni, Shruthi Haasan, Upendra, Sathyaraj, Soubin Shahir, and Aamir Khan.