Baahubali mania grips Bengaluru, overtakes Rajinikanth craze

Bengaluru: While most films take several days to surpass the Rs 100 crore mark, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, the mega Rana Daggubatti starrer has reportedly, on Day One, sold over 3.3 million tickets for Baahubali-2  till Friday evening across India. At least, that’s what the largest online entertainment ticketing platform, BookMyshow claims. 

“With this, the film which released in over 6,000 screens on Friday has created an all-time record high on our platform with advance ticket sales surpassing Baahubali 1 by over 350 per cent. A whopping 12 tickets were sold every second for Baahubali 2 all day on the day before the release,” it said.

Released across 500 screens and with its tickets selling for between Rs 500 and Rs 1,600, the Baahubali mania appeared to have  overtaken even the Rajnikanth movie fervour in the city and the rest of the state.      

Riding on the waves of controversy, S S Rajmouli's Bahubali 2: The Conclusion had a record opening in Bengaluru and across Karnataka except in parts of Mandya district that were still not ready to forgive actor Sathyaraj for his comments on the Cauvery dispute.

With almost all theatres seeing a never before rush for tickets, multiplexes steeply pushed up their ticket prices, that sold like hot cake even in the range of  Rs 500 to Rs 1,600.  Tickets at single screen theatres that were in the range of Rs 200 to Rs 600 were also snapped up by movie- goers eager to watch the movie on the first day.

While in neighbouring states, the tickets were priced not beyond Rs 150 on day one,  Bengaluru and Karnataka as a whole have given the producers a bonanza with their astonishingly high ticket prices and sales.