New Delhi, Sep 15 (IANS): 2023 is without doubt the Year of Shah Rukh Khan, and the imponderable left today is whether Rajkumar Hirani's immigration saga 'Dunki' will help Bollywood's King score a hat-trick, ending his four-year hiatus from the silver screen.

With Tamil director Atlee's vigilante actioner 'Jawan', starring SRK, Nayanthara and Vijay Sethupati, crossing the box office collections of the year's other big hit, Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel's 'Gadar 2', in just nine days, SRK now carries the distinction of leading this year's two certified blockbusters -- 'Pathaan' and 'Jawan'.

Having made a gross collection (including the 18 per cent GST) of Rs 21.90 crore and Rs 20.20 crore respectively on the eighth and ninth days, 'Jawan' has raked in Rs 696 crore worldwide, compared with the 'Gadar 2' worldwide collection of Rs 679.69 crore (including domestic gross receipts adding up to 615.81 crore) on the film's 35th day, according to the trade website, Bollywood Hugama.

Trade analyst Ramesh Bala said that if 'Jawan', like 'Pathaan', makes it to the Rs 1,000 crore club, which is highly likely, it will definitely be a "rare occurrence" for Hindi cinema.

He also pointed out that the worldwide earnings of 'Jawan' gave it the lift to surpass 'Gadar 2', which has been a domestic-market phenomenon with its shrill anti-Pakistan narrative.

And, as Karan Taurani of Elara Capital points out, 'Jawan' has no real competition in the near future, for the next Hindi releases (scheduled for September 28) are 'Fukrey 3', which has a niche audience, and Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri's 'The Vaccine War'.

"Maybe the hype for 'Jawan' will slightly simmer down by September 28, but the new release won't have much of an impact," Taurani noted. He added, though, that Agnihotri's popularity after 'The Kashmir Files' is likely to make 'The Vaccine War' a stronger contender.

A close watcher of the southern market, Bala says the weekend ahead will see the worldwide gross receipts of 'Jawan' cross Rs 750 crore, and the net collections (minus GST) in the South touch Rs 400 crore.

By its third weekend, the film's worldwide collection, Bala predicts, will go somewhere over Rs 900-1,000 crore, especially because occupancies in cinemas have returned to pre-Covid levels.

And if the movie ends up getting picked up by theatres in Japan, China and Russia, then the total gross collection will go up even further.