Raksha Bandhan Box Office Collection: Starry flops? Aamir Khan’s ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ earns Rs 10 cr on Day 1; Akshay Kumar-starrer ‘Raksha Bandhan’ manages Rs 8 cr on opening

Aamir Khan-starrer ‘Laal Singh Chaddha‘, which was surrounded by controversies and boycott calls two weeks before its release, opened to mixed reviews on Thursday (August 11).

The makers of the film, Aamir Khan Productions, were banking on the extended Independence weekend and hoping to cash in on the moolah, but the advance ticket sales showed another trend. The movie had shockingly low occupancy in theatres.

According to Bollywood Hungama, the much-anticipated film only sold around 30,000 tickets at the national chains such as PVR,

and Cinepolis in Tier-1 cities as of Wednesday morning. Across India, the movie managed to sell approximately 57,000 tickets on the opening day.

Film trade analyst Rohit Jaiswal shared that ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ earned Rs 10.60 crore on the opening day despite the strong star cast.

The BoxOfficeIndia report said that the Raksha Bandhan celebrations gave a festive push to the film post-afternoon which resulted in a double-digit figure. Delhi and Punjab are the best performing cities for the film, said the report. However, the film didn’t get much traction at the box office in the Hindi circuits.

Another film trade analyst Sumit Kadel said that ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ would’ve made at least Rs 20 crore on Day 1 had it not gotten tangled in the boycott controversy.

‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ is Khan’s comeback film after four years since his box-office flop ‘Thugs of Hindostan’ in 2018. Besides Khan, the movie features Kareena Kapoor Khan, Mona Singh and Naga Chaitanya. The film marks the Telugu star’s Bollywood debut.

Meanwhile, Akshay Kumar-starrer ‘Raksha Bandhan’ – which clashed with ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ at the box office on Thursday – also opened to a slow start.

The movie critic Jaiswal said that ‘Raksha Bandhan’ collected Rs 8 crore on Day 1.

Since the pandemic, several theatrical Bollywood releases such as Kabir Khan-directorial ’83’, ‘Bachchhan Paandey’, ‘Shamshera’, ‘Jayeshbhai Jordaar’ and ‘Samrat Prithviraj’, among others, have shown abysmal performance at the box-office.

On the other hand, Southern releases like ‘RRR’, ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ and ‘Vikram’ have been major blockbusters across India this year.

It’s to be seen if the extended weekend offers some relief to these new Bollywood releases.