Director Shankar's 2.0 (also known as Enthiran/Robot/ Robo2.o) starring Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar has received a slow start and made an average collection at the US box office in the premiere shows.
The film 2.0 had a huge pre-release hype and made record prices for its theatrical rights. Prime Media, which acquired its rights, has booked over 800 screens for the film in the US. The distributor tweeted on November 26, "#2Point0 all set to open in USA from Nov 28th at 6pm EST. 2D & 3D content will reach theatres on time. It should be a smooth premier release. Get ready for #2Point0StormOnNov28."
The Shankar-directed 3D science fiction action film was expected to open to humongous response and beat the records of Baahubali 2, which registered pre-sale of $3 million and crossed $3.5 million mark in the US premieres.
Though the numbers are not available, the trends show that 2.0 had a poor pre-sales and average opening response at the US box office in its premiere shows on Wednesday.
Whenever a big-ticket movie is released, trade experts used to get collection details from Rentrack and share it on social media. But none has revealed the premiere shows' collection of 2.0 at the US box office.
In its pre-sale, 2.0 has registered 1 million tickets in BookMyShow and 1.25 million tickets in Paytm Tickets. These numbers show the India viewers' craze to watch 2.0 in 3D. But the same enthusiasm was missing in the USA. It is said that US audience get to watch 3D movies regularly with normal prices, but they had to pay $30 to watch the Rajinikanth starrer. This resulted in poor pre-sales for the movie.
OverSeasRights.com tweeted, "As we told Earlier, #2Point0 #USA Premieres shows bookings are too slow with 30% occupancy. Below is the pre booking situation of biggest market in #USA #Dallas, Texas $30+ Ticket Price is showing its huge impact already in Bookings. #2Point0FDFS #2Point0FromNov29th."
But, Prime Media has a different say on it. The distribution house tweeted, "#2Point0 storm in 15 mins. Lot of things didn't go as planned for premier shows. Thanks for being patient with us. We should be in full force from tomorrow. Enjoy this beautiful creation by Shankar and watch it with family and friends. #G2G1Intl p.s If you see any issue in theater show times or pricing let us know."
