‘MNIK’ is Shah Rukh’s top seller in US with record haul

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WASHINGTON - “My Name Is Khan” has set a new all-time career record for Shah Rukh Khan by becoming the Bollywood star’s top-grossing film in North America with total sales of $3,635,000 after 17 days of release.

The film Sunday surpassed Khan’s old record of $3,597,372 for 2007’s “Om Shanti Om” and continues to play in 119 theaters across the US and Canada in its third week of play.

On Feb 22, after only 11 days of release, “My Name Is Khan” also became the highest grossing film ever for director Karan Johar beating the $3,275,444 of 2006’s “Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna” which starred Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Rani Mukherjee, Preity Zinta and Abhishek Bachchan.

A week earlier, with a Sunday sale of $761,000, “My Name Is Khan” recorded the highest one-day gross ever for any Hindi-language film in North America.

The film’s Feb 12-14 opening weekend sales of $1,939,000 was again a new record for a Hindi film beating the $1,764,131 of 2007’s “Om Shanti Om.”

With an estimated four-day opening weekend figure of $2,275,000, it was the fastest Hindi film ever to break the $2,000,000 mark. It beat the previous record of 5 days set in December by “3 Idiots” which grossed $2,149,227 in its five-day opening over the Christmas holiday weekend.

In North America, “My Name Is Khan” was distributed by Fox Searchlight and marketed by Box Office Guru.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)