King vs Avengers Doomsday Box Office: Is It Really a Clash?
So much for the sandwich panic. The King vs Avengers Doomsday box office story just took a sharp turn. Shah Rukh Khan went on X and flatly refused to move his film. King opens on December 24, 2026. Full stop.
Everyone’s calling it a three-way clash: SRK’s King vs Avengers: Doomsday vs Dune 3. Line the dates up, though, and it looks more like a crowded eight-day corridor than a head-on crash. The two Hollywood giants land together on December 18. King follows six days later, and Jumanji 3 squeezes in on Christmas Day.
We think SRK has read this room better than the headlines have.
All figures here are as of September 18, 2026. Trade numbers shift daily, so treat them as a snapshot.
The December 2026 Release Calendar: Four Big Films in Eight Days
This is the Christmas 2026 box office war in India, as the calendar stands today:
- December 18: Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three, same day. The double bill already has a nickname: “Dunesday.”
- December 24: King, which reunites SRK with Pathaan director Siddharth Anand.
- December 25: Jumanji: Open World, aka Jumanji 3. It moved from December 11 specifically to dodge Dunesday.
Spot what’s missing? A true same-day face-off with King. The Hollywood pair gets a six-day head start. Jumanji arrives a day after SRK, not on top of him.
The calendar is kind to SRK in another way. December 24, 2026 is a Thursday. That gives King Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and a full weekend in its first four days.
Most of the King vs Avengers Doomsday box office chatter buries this gap. Picture the crowd on December 24. The Marvel and Dune fans who needed a first-day show will have had six days to catch both films.
Why SRK Isn’t Blinking on December 24
The date isn’t news. SRK announced it months ago with a trademark flourish: “#KING is Ready to ROAR on 24.12.2026 in Cinemas.” The news is that he’s sticking to it, Hollywood neighbours and all.
Earlier this month, SRK ran an AMA on X. One fan asked if King was “stuck between a sandwich.” His reply, per Outlook India: “not at all.” In his version, King is the “centre” of that sandwich.
He also owned up to a rough shoot:
“Had a few injuries while shooting so had to start stop many times but now all broken is fixed…and nearly all done…so all good.”
Peak SRK, that. Hurt, patched up, joking about it, and nearly done.
He’s been through a Christmas clash before
There’s a precedent here. In 2023, Dunki took on Salaar at Christmas and still gave SRK his best Christmas opening day. We’ll get to that exact number in a minute.
The holiday does some heavy lifting, too. Christmas week has fewer working days. Koimoi points out that this has historically helped Hindi openings, no matter the competition.
So no, this isn’t bravado. This is a star with a Christmas precedent, walking in with what’s reportedly the costliest film of his career.
Is King vs Avengers Doomsday a Real Box Office Clash?
Short answer? Not really. The bigger December fight is Hollywood against Hollywood, and King barely figures in it.
Dune 3 has already boxed Avengers out of IMAX
Here’s the subplot most Indian coverage skips. Dune: Part Three holds IMAX exclusivity for three weeks from release. It even starts early. IMAX 70mm insider screenings kick off at six theatres on December 14, with digital IMAX from December 15, ScreenRant reports.
That shuts Avengers: Doomsday out of IMAX in the US at launch. Disney and Marvel have responded by pushing their own “Infinity Vision” premium-format certification.
ScreenRant’s report covers American screens. Say a similar split plays out in India. Then Marvel and the Dune camp spend week one scrapping over the same premium screens. King isn’t even in that queue.
Multiplex vs single screen: two different crowds
Then there’s the screen-type split. Trade voices quoted by M9 News call King “a movie made for the masses, specifically the single-screen audience.” They add that “single-screen audiences are hardly interested in watching Hollywood films.”
Put those together and the overlap shrinks fast. Trade expects Doomsday to rule the multiplexes and premium formats. King should own the single screens, where Hollywood usually struggles.
So the King vs Avengers Doomsday box office battle is really about screen types. Will some city multiplex regulars have to pick one on Christmas Eve? Sure. But the Marvel die-hards will have seen Doomsday by then.
Our bigger worry is Jumanji 3. It opens on Christmas Day, which is King‘s second day, and it’ll chase the same holiday crowd.
King Box Office Prediction: The Day 1 Number to Watch
Time for the numbers. In any King vs Avengers Doomsday box office debate, opening day is where the talk stops.
To set a new personal Christmas record, King has to beat ₹29.2 crore, the Dunki opener. Koimoi calls that bar “surprisingly easy,” and we agree. Pathaan and Jawan both opened in the ₹50–70 crore range.
The fuel is there, too. Siddharth Anand is back in the director’s chair. Suhana Khan makes her theatrical debut. Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Rani Mukerji, Jaideep Ahlawat and Arshad Warsi round out the cast.
Here’s our Day 1 scorecard for December 24:
- Under ₹29.2 crore: Worry. Hollywood really did bite.
- ₹29.2–50 crore: A new Christmas best for SRK, though below his Pathaan and Jawan openings.
- ₹50 crore and up: Back in Pathaan–Jawan territory. That sandwich joke ages like fine wine.
The catch? A record opening doesn’t make a hit on its own. Reports peg King‘s budget at ₹450 crore, the biggest of SRK’s career. At that price, a loud Thursday won’t be enough. It needs legs into January.
Pathaan, Jawan and the ₹3,000 Crore Milestone
Zoom out from the King vs Avengers Doomsday box office noise for a second. The big fan question is whether King can beat Jawan. We think the sharper number is ₹3,000 crore.
By Koimoi’s count, SRK’s three post-COVID releases have grossed ₹2,704.07 crore worldwide:
- Jawan: ₹1,163.62 crore
- Pathaan: ₹1,069.85 crore
- Dunki: ₹470.6 crore
That leaves King needing less than ₹300 crore worldwide to push SRK past ₹3,000 crore in the post-COVID era. For a film this size, treat that as the floor.
Beating Jawan is the tougher ask. BusinessToday put Jawan‘s India haul at ₹753 crore, about ₹210 crore more than Pathaan‘s ₹543.09 crore. Seen slightly different figures elsewhere? That’s normal. Our explainer on how box office collection is calculated in India covers why trackers rarely agree.
Opening on Christmas Eve also leaves King barely a week before the year ends. Can it crash our running list of the highest-grossing Bollywood movies of 2026 so far in that time?
Our take: King doesn’t need to out-earn Jawan to count as a hit. It needs to prove 2023 wasn’t a one-off.
So, Who Wins Christmas 2026?
Who takes the King vs Avengers Doomsday box office race, then? Our call: nobody loses big.
Hollywood’s two giants will mostly eat into each other’s premium screens. King walks in on Christmas Eve to a single-screen crowd that Hollywood rarely reaches. It has Christmas Day and a full weekend right behind it.
If there’s a banana peel, it’s Jumanji 3 the very next day. The other one is that ₹450 crore budget, which won’t forgive a soft second week.
SRK called King the centre of the sandwich. Only King Khan would cast himself as the filling. On paper, though, he’s right. But picture abhi baaki hai, mere dost.
We’ll track King‘s Day 1 collection the morning after release. Then comes our full Paisa Vasool Ya Time Waste? verdict. Need another Hollywood face-off while you wait? Try our Spider-Man: Brand New Day vs The Odyssey box office India breakdown.
Tell us in the comments: SRK, Marvel or Arrakis, who are you booking first?