Whether you liked the movie or not, you have to admit that Salman Khan's Eid release of 2018, Race 3 has done wonderful business in its opening week. Within three days, the movie has managed to gross more than Rs 100 crore at the box office, taking full advantage of Salman Khan's star power and the holiday factor of Eid. As per the latest update, the film, directed by Remo D'Souza, has made Rs 142 crore at the box office.

However, there have been reports that the producers of Race 3 are giving out inflated figures to compensate for the movie's underperformance at the box office. Though it did cross Rs 100 crore within record time, certain sources believe the figures have been inflated for about Rs 10-20 crore.

We managed to get in touch with trade analyst Akshaye Rathi, who has a terrific insight on how we look at a movie's box office performance. Talking about the rumours surrounding Race 3's box office performance, Rathi EXCLUSIVELY told us, "I think the only person, or anybody at all who has the right to state this (the box office figures) is the person who has any kind of documentary evidence about it. I certainly don't think that there is anybody who claims that the figures are inflated, has any documentary evidence of cinema-wise collections to state that. So we believe the figures that are given by the producers. The only way to counter it or to defer that is to bring documentary evidence in cinema-wise collections to prove that, which is not available with them."

We do hope that this dispels all the speculations surrounding Race 3's box office performance. Speaking of which, Akshaye Rathi was quite impressed with how Race 3 has performed in its first week. He added, "The movie has performed really well if you look at the weekend figures. Also if you look at the Monday colllections, it is doing really good. While the critics and many people on social media have not been kind on Race 3, there is certainly an audience that has turned out in significant numbers to watch the film. There are many movies that have crossed Rs 100 crore mark, but the ones that managed to do so within three days can be counted on your finger-tips. So it is a commendable achievement and I do hope Race 3 manages to get a decent lifetime collection."

So yeah, while the movie has disappointed us, content-wise, it is not a disappointment at the box office per se. With no competition at the theatres till June 29 (when Ranbir Kapoor's Sanju comes out), expect Race 3 to make hay while the sun shines!

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 21, 2018 05:29 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).