“Shock waves within the film industry thanks to shockingly low collections,” wrote Bollywood box office analyst Taran Adarsh on X (formerly Twitter). The post came after three movies had been released on August 2, but none of those made any mark at the box office.
Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha, starring legitimate veteran stars like Ajay Devgn and Tabu in lead roles, did business of only ₹1.85 crore on its release day.
The movie, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Neeraj Pandey, recovered a bit on the next day with ₹2.15 crore. Numbers went further up to ₹2.75 crore on the first Sunday. The total estimates for the weekend stand at ₹6.75 crore net.
According to media reports, the movie cost ₹100 crore to make. So, the weekend numbers look disastrous.
Ulajh was also released on August 2. The movie starring, Jahnvi Kapoor and Gulshan Devaiah, collected ₹1.15 crore on Friday, ₹1.75 crore on Saturday and ₹2 crore on Sunday. The total estimate is ₹4.90 crore net for the weekend. According to media reports, the movie was made with ₹50 crore.
The third movie released on August 2 was The Sabarmati Report, which created the least buzz among the three. It stars Vikrant Massey, Raashii Khanna and Riddhi Dogra in leading roles. There i no available data on its box office.
Before this, Sarfira was released on July 12. It had one of the most bankable stars in Bollywood, Akshay Kumar. Still, it opened with poor numbers, ₹2.5 crore. As per media reports, the movie was made with ₹100 crore. The movie has made ₹33.53 crore worldwide.
Meanwhile, the search for “Bollywood” on Google continues to show high trend:
One of the users said it was “expected”. One thing is also clear...only #SRK and #SalmanKhan can pull off decent opening even with low buzz and disaster reviews…” the user wrote.
Another user shared that Prabhas’ Kalki 2898 AD, released on June 27, is selling more tickets than newly-released Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha.
“SRK is the saviour,” mentioned another user.