Sunny Deol’s Border 2 races ahead of Dhurandhar in pre-sales, eyes Rs 1.25 billion holiday weekend

Border 2, the long-awaited sequel to JP Dutta’s 1997 war classic, has arrived with a fresh fire, and it hasn’t even completed its first day in theatres yet. Riding the Republic Day weekend and the emotional weight of a legacy title, the Sunny Deol-led film is already signalling that 2026’s first theatrical heavyweight has found its footing.

Directed by Anurag Singh and mounted as a full-scale patriotic spectacle, Border 2 has secured a massive release across nearly 4,800 screens and around 17,000 shows nationwide. Advance booking numbers tell a clear story: over four lakh tickets sold before opening day, translating into an estimated Rs 12.5 crore gross, with pre-sales surging by nearly 100 per cent in the final 24 hours alone, as reported by Indian Express.

Even before the first show rolled, the sequel had comfortably outpaced Dhurandhar, one of last year’s biggest Hindi hits, placing it in rare early company.

The timing could not have been more strategic. A national holiday on Monday, combined with the recall value of the Border franchise and strong early occupancies, has positioned the film for a robust opening.

Trade estimates suggest Border 2 could clock a Rs 35–40 crore net opening day, with the four-day extended weekend potentially pushing collections beyond Rs 125 crore. If those projections hold, the film would rank among the biggest Republic Day frames in recent years.

Trade analyst Taran Adarsh echoed the sentiment and told India Today, calling the opening “exceptional” and noting that the buzz is only beginning to translate into footfalls. While stopping short of a precise figure, he underlined that the day had just begun — and the momentum was unmistakable.

Advance booking data further reinforces the scale of the release. The film sold over 2.25 lakh tickets on BookMyShow alone, with overall advance sales crossing four lakh tickets nationwide. On Friday morning, the platform reported sales of over 10,000 tickets an hour, a pace comparable to Sunny Deol’s Gadar 2, which enjoyed similar advance figures and went on to become a phenomenon.

By comparison, Dhurandhar had sold around 1.25 lakh tickets before release, despite eventually becoming the biggest Hindi film of all time. That contrast highlights just how aggressively Border 2 has entered the race.