A lot was expected from the biggest Bollywood clash of 2022. Sadly, both ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ and ‘Raksha Bandhan’ didn’t impress the audiences. What was worse was that not many people turned up to watch the film on day 1, which showed that audiences were just not interested.
In last week’s edition, we had predicted that though ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ can open at Rs. 14-15 crores, one should be prepared for a poor opening of Rs. 11-12 crores, since times are quite unpredictable today. And the worst fears came true as it opened at just Rs. 11.50 crores. Had the word of mouth been positive, it would have got more footfalls on the evening of the first day. It was released on Thursday, August 11 and had the advantage of a five-day weekend. Yet, it managed to collect just Rs. 46 crores in 5 days while the industry and trade had hoped that the film would be able to cross the Rs. 50 crores mark in 2 or 3 days in the worst case scenario. On Tuesday, once the holiday period got over, the collections fell to Rs. 2 crores as compared to Rs. 6 crores the previous day. ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’s lifetime is expected to be less than Rs. 60 crores.
‘Raksha Bandhan’, too, faced rejection. As predicted last week, it opened at Rs. 8 crores. It was not a huge opening but the film could have gone anywhere from here if public reports were in their favour. But the word of mouth, though not entirely negative, was average. Hence, the film fell and crashed after the holidays. It’ll be able to collect around Rs. 43-44 crores at best in its lifetime.
A lot of trolls started celebrating after ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ flopped. They took credit for it which is laughable as regular moviegoers never took the Boycott Bollywood campaign. They didn’t go for the film as they were plainly not interested.
Meanwhile, ‘Karthikeya 2’ came out of the blue and attracted audiences. It had a weird release as it came in cinemas on Saturday, August 13. The first-day earnings were just Rs. 6 lakhs. But the film’s earnings jumped to Rs. 25 lakhs on Sunday followed by a huge Rs. 1.25 crores on Monday, Independence Day. Even the number of shows increased from 50 to more than 1000. The film came down a bit on Tuesday, which was unexpected as it could have grown more. The first week’s collections are expected to be around Rs. 4-4.50 crores.
In week 2, it’ll be released in many more cinemas and if all goes well, it can collect more in Week 2 than in Week 1. It’s still not a big hit and won’t do as much as ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ and ‘Raksha Bandhan’ as people are made to believe. But the fact that it jumped from Rs. 6 lakhs to more than Rs. 1 crore in 2 days showed that the audience wants to see the film.
Surprisingly, ‘Karthikeya’s first part, which was released in 2014, wasn’t a big hit in Hindi. Many have not even seen and don’t even know whether ‘Karthikeya 2’s story is connected with part 1. Yet, they are going for it in hordes.
The major Hindi release of the week is ‘Dobaaraa’. It is the remake of the Spanish film ‘Mirage’ (2018) and it stars Taapsee Pannu, Pavail Gulati and Rahul Bhat. The film is directed by Anurag Kashyap and produced by Ekta Kapoor. The trailer is intriguing and the film seems to rest on a great plot. Sadly, the buzz is negligible. When Akshay Kumar and Aamir Khan’s films are not finding an audience, a niche film of Taapsee Pannu, unfortunately, stands no chance. Her last film, ‘Shabaash Mithu’, which was released last month, had opened at just Rs. 40 lakhs. This film will open in the same range. If the word of mouth is positive, it can grow and surprise.
