Lal Singh Chaddha collection day 1

After a spate of box office duds coming from Bollywood, a lot is riding on the fate of Aamir Khan's Laal Singh Chaddha and Akshay Kumar's Raksha Bandhan.

While Bollywood’s performance has been dismal, four successive super-hits from the South—Pushpa: The Rise Part-1, RRR, KGF: Chapter 2 and Vikram (to a much smaller extent in Hindi as Vikram: Hitlist)—have grossed more than Rs 3,000 crore worldwide, including nearly Rs 800 crore in Hindi net collections. On the other hand, Raksha Bandhan is estimated to open with Rs 9 crore on day one and may end up reporting lifetime collection of Rs 80-90 crore. We maintain that Hindi Box Office is slated to decline 22 per cent (vs pre COVID levels) in Q2FY23, as content has been below par so far and we are already the end of first half of the quarter, with no film reporting a positive surprise,” he said. His only hit during this period has been Sooryavanshi (Nov 5, 2021), which was made on a production budget of about Rs 160 crore and earned a net lifetime collection of Rs 196 crore in India and Rs 295 crore gross worldwide collections, according to Bollywood Hungama. Elara Capital’s vice president Karan Taurani says expects Laal Singh to have a stronger opening with Rs 16 crore, and a lifetime collection of Rs 150-160 crore. Seven of the top 10 grossers in this span were from the South, pegs Ormax Media data. Trade analyst Komal Nahta says they are both costly, big-banner and well-mounted films, which are coming when Bollywood is reeling under the pressure of losses. Raksha Bandhan, on the other hand, saw advance booking of 35,000 tickets sold for Day 1 at the box office with a total collection of approx. The film is produced by Zee Studios and director Aanand L. Rai at an approximate budget of over Rs 70 crore. In terms of all India sales, the film, which is an official remake of the hit Hollywood film Forrest Gump, has sold approximately 57,000 tickets for the opening day. For last few weeks, the film was facing social media backlash and boycott calls because of old statements of Aamir Khan, who has also produced the film along with Viacom18 studios. Over the next eight days, there are four holidays owing to Raksha Bandhan, a long weekend including Independence Day, followed by Janmashtami and Parsi New Year which may be partial holidays.