Shah Rukh Khan's Don 2 collected around Rs 15 crore on its release on Friday, as analysts predicted a strong Christmas weekend will help Bollywood close an unusually successful year with yet another big hit.

Trends till 8 pm suggested net collections of the film to be around Rs 14-15 crore, said Sanjeev Lamba, chief executive officer at Reliance Entertainment. The collections are lower than first day collections of recent Bollywood hits, which Lamba attributed to a working Friday.

"Average occupancy across shows was 85-90%, said Gautam Dutta, chief operating officer, PVR Cinemas. "A good thing is that bulk bookings by corporates for the next two days are also very high," he said. The film had a significant opening overseas too. In the UAE, it grossed $360,000, which is more than Khan's My Name is Khan which had collected $240,000 on the first day.

In the UK, the movie, which opened on Wednesday with limited shows, and on Thursday has raked in £202,000. The sequel to Don (2006), is jointly produced by Reliance Entertainment, Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani's Excel Entertainment and Khan. It has been released in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. The film is being released in close to 3,000 screens across India, including 550 3D screens, Utpal Acharya, head of distribution and acquisition at Reliance Entertainment, said.

Suniel Wadhwa, independent distributor and former head of distribution at UTV Motion Pictures, said he expected Don 2 to collect nothing less than Rs 35 crore from the overseas market.

Acccording to trade sources, Reliance Entertainment is spending Rs 25 crore on print and publicity of the film. Nearly Rs 5 crore is being spent on TV advertising, Rs 2.5 crore on advertising in the print media, about Rs 1 crore on outdoor publicity and Rs 12-13 crore on prints and digital work of the film.