Top five Bollywood openers of 2018: Baaghi 2, Padmaavat, PadMan and more

2018 has been seeing good business at the box office, what with the small budget and huge budget films co-existing happily at the theatres. The year started off with the controversial film Padmaavat, followed by Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety, which was a surprise hit, earning much more money than what was expected of it, thus becoming one of the highest openers of 2018. But now, we have a new entrant on the list, Baaghi 2. Here are the top five films which have struck gold at the box office:

Padmaavat: After months of struggle that involved right-wing organisations, politicians, death threats, and release delays, the film finally hit the screens on January 25 and became a megahit. The movie earned Rs 19 crore on its opening day.

PadMan: Akshay Kumar essayed the role of a taboo-breaker in PadMan, who aims to normalise talking about menstruation and goes on to invent a cheap sanitary napkin machine to help women in rural India. He based his character on the real-life PadMan, Coimbatore's Arunachalam Muruganantham. PadMan opened at Rs 10.26 crore.

Raid: As the name implies, this most recent entrant in this list is based on a raid, specifically a raid by an honest income tax officer along with his colleagues. This film stars Ajay Devgn, Ileana D'Cruz, and Saurabh Shukla and it is directed by Raj Kumar Gupta. Although the film has received mixed reviews, that has not stopped audiences from flocking to watch this film. It opened just short of PadMan at Rs 10.04 crore.

Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety: Probably the film with the lowest budget in this list, Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety recycled the formula invented first by 2011's Pyar Ka Punchnama. It also featured the trio from that film, director Luv Ranjan and actors Kartik Aaryan and Nushrat Bharucha. Targeted towards youth and capitalising on the binaries between men and women in the popular Indian imagination, the film opened at an impressive Rs 6.42 crore.