25th December 2008 – I remember watching Aamir Khan’s Ghajini in a packed theater. The film had seen an intensive marketing campaign like never before, what with ushers in Aamir Khan’s cropped hairstyle. The era of multiplexes had just started maturing, AR Rahman’s music was chartbuster before release, new pairing of Aamir Khan and Asin was being liked and AR Murugadoss, albeit remaking his own namesake Tamil film, had put together a supremely entertaining brutal action drama that was new for the pan-India audience.
The film was special as it was the first ever to breach the 100 crores mark at the box office, and as a result the term 100 Crore Club was coined. Also, the film was single-handedly responsible for an exponential rise of trade reporting as before that a film’s success was basically measured with the yardstick of having a 50 or a 100 day run, what with a silver or golden jubilee run being a thing of the past.
Circa 18th March 2026, and the date would be remembered for the unleashing of Dhurandhar – The Revenge, which is now all set to unlock the 1000 Crore Club. In between there have been several films entering the 200 and 300 Crore Club, KGF: Chapter 2 (Hindi) invented the 400 Crore Club soon after COVID, and then 2023 saw Pathaan, Gadar 2 and Animal entering the 500 Crore Club (after Baahubali: The Conclusion had already done that many years back in just the Hindi version). Jawan was the first to enter 600 Crore Club and Stree 2 & Chhaava followed it up as well. There was none in the 700 Crore Club but then Pushpa 2 (Hindi) arrived like a storm and created 800 Crore Club.
Well, that was just an indication of things to come as it was time for Dhurandhar to break all barriers. Released on 5th December 2025, the film not just went on to emerge as the first Bollywood film to enter 800 Crore Club but also came excruciating close to inventing the 900 Crore Club before falling short by just a few Crores and closing at 896 Crores.
Well, Dhurandhar – The Revenge won’t face any such challenge as in just four and a half days, it has entered the 400 Crore Club, the fastest ever to do that, and would soon enter the 500 Crore Club and may possible close around 600 crores mark before the extended first week comes to a close. All of this means that becoming the highest grossing Indian film of all times in a single language would be a cakewalk for the Aditya Dhar action drama once it enters the 900 Crore Club.
Post that it would be all about breaching the 1000 crores mark, and that would make it 10X growth over Ghajini which had scored 100 crores to create history 18 years back. New record books would now be written with the Ranveer Singh starrer and all that Indian cinema would need to do now is to sit back, relax, and see how the mayhem unleashes further in days to come.
