China adores Aamir Khan films. So much, that his 2016 blockbuster Dangal is going to open across a breath-taking 9,000 screens this Friday, reports a news agency. That’s more screens than Dangal showed on in India – and, also, more than the first-of-its-kind 8,000-screen release for Baahubali: The Conclusion last week.
Amrita Pandey, Vice President of Dangal’s co-producer Disney India, says, “Dangal will release in China in 9,000 screens – which is the widest ever release for an Indian film in any territory. We are very excited to release Dangal in China. The film is very special and with a story which has the potential to travel the world and transcend geographies.”
The last Aamir Khan film to release in China was PK, which was shown there across 4,000 screens last year and made over Rs. 100 crore.
China’s screen count is nearly 40,000 – as opposed to 8,500 in India. Dangal, which opened the Beijing Film Festival this year, will release commercially this week as Shuai Jiao Baba, which translates as ‘Let’s Wrestle, Dad.’ Dangal is the true story of how Haryanvi wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat trained his daughters Geeta and Babita in his sport, defying the patriarchal conventions of his village and society. Aamir Khan, in the lead role, put on an incredible number of kilos to play Mr Phogat as a middle-aged and pot-bellied father. Actresses Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sanya Malhotra played Geeta and Babita, TV star Sakshi Tanwar was cast as their mother.
Aamir Khan and director Nitesh Tiwari were in China last month to promote their film.
Dangal released in India on December 23 last year and swiftly replaced PK as India’s highest-earning film – it has now been displaced by Baahubali: The Conclusion which only just released last week and has already shattered several existing box office records, many of them set by Dangal.
