Akshay Kumar is back with comedy after several social media films and fans are waiting for it. His comeback to comedy was with Priyadarshan’s ‘Bhooth Bangla’ and the third installment of ‘Welcome’ is slated to release on Friday. In terms of advance bookings, one would expect the opening of ‘Welcome To the Jungle’ to be better than ‘Bhooth Bangla’.Advance bookings for the film started slowly but it was close to release. According to Sacnilk, by 2 PM on Thursday, less than a day before the film’s release, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ had sold around 53,000 tickets ahead of its opening day, making around Rs 1.26 crore in collections. The film has also seen encouraging sales in its pay-per-view and opening weekend sales. On BookMyShow, the ticket sales are said to be moving at around 4,000 tickets per hour on Thursday afternoon, indicating the high interest among the movie lovers.With this, one can expect high numbers of pre-bookings till Thursday night, but mostly, the film will depend on the bookings that come in after the talk when the reviews start coming in on Friday morning. An opening day total of over Rs 10 crore will be good for the film, and that is what even the industry is predicting. Pay-per-views can contribute Rs 3 to 3.5 crore to the opening day number. But the film will finally be able to see growth through positive reviews which should be reflected in the weekend numbers.Akshay Kumar’s first release, ‘Bhooth Bangla’, opened at Rs 16 crore, including Rs 3.75 crore from pay-per-views. Based on current trends, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ seems well placed to match that number and may well surpass it.The film also enjoys the privilege of having an unbroken release window. We have ‘Cocktail 2’ and Imtiaz Ali’s ‘Main Vaapas Aaunga’ playing in the theaters and both may see a drop in numbers if ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ receives positive reviews and gives them a run for their money. One saw how the numbers of ‘Main Vaapas Aaunga’ saw a growth through positive comments while ‘Cocktail 2’ crossed Rs 100 crore on Thursday worldwide. Will all these movies continue even after the release of ‘Welcome To The Jungle’? Time will tell. But for now, the number of these movies has been reduced because the new Friday release will get more windows.Directed as a madcap action drama, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ has an ensemble cast that includes Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Raveena Tandon, Arshad WarsiParesh Rawal, Jackie Shroff, Tusshar Kapoor, Jacqueline FernandezLara Dutta is Disha Pataniamong several others.