Box Office: Vikram Vedha Has A Decent Weekend, PS-1 Is Fair, Brahmastra In Quest For Rs 275 Cr. Lifetime

Prior to the release of Vikram Vedha, it was expected that the film would comfortably take a start of 15 crores on Friday, and post that gaining a weekend of 50 crores would be a cakewalk. After all, this is one of the biggest films to arrive in 2022 and moreover with Saif Ali Khan and Hrithik Roshan in the lead roles, there was added credibility for Vikram Vedha. This isn't all as the original Tamil version featuring Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi in lead roles was much appreciated by those who had watched it and was keenly discussed amongst film buffs.

That's the reason why it was rather surprising when the first day numbers didn't even come close to the 15 crores mark. In fact the numbers just about managed to touch double digits as 10.58 crores came in. Given the fact that Vikram Vedha was one of the much awaited films of 2022, the numbers were underwhelming.

Thankfully though, there was at least a bit of momentum gained over the weekend which is fair news for the film. Otherwise other action films like Shamshera [31.75 crores], Samrat Prithviraj [39.40 crores] and Bachchhan Paandey [36.17 crores] had struggled over the weekend after taking a start which was nowhere close to what was expect out of them. Here, Vikram Vedha has collected 37.59 crores* in its first three days which is better than both Shamshera and Bachchhan Paandey while staying in the same zone as Samrat Prithviraj.

Of course the cost of Vikram Vedha is much lesser than Samrat Prithviraj and word of mouth is much better too, which means it would comfortably go past the 70 crores lifetime of that film. However, need of the hour for Vikram Vedha is to go much beyond that since there is good deal of credibility attached to the action drama which has been designed for the thinking audience who like some sense and sensibility to masala action affairs as well.

By the look of things that should be possible since there is a big Dusshehra holiday bang in the middle of the week, as a result of which Monday and Tuesday would be somewhat stable as well. Then of course there is Wednesday which should be big and as much closer to the Saturday numbers it can get on that day, the better it would be for the film to comfortably go past the 75 crores mark in its lifetime run.

Meanwhile the other big release of the week, PS-1, couldn't quite gather much of the collections in its opening weekend. Though the film has opened quite well on the expected lines in the Tamil version, things haven't been as rosy when it comes to the dubbed Hindi release. The film has a very regional appeal to it and one can't blame Mani Ratnam for that since he had to be true to the history of Tamil Nadu on which the story is based. As a result the names of the places and the characters in the film had to be left untouched.

One wonders though whether things would have been better had the storytelling been designed to have more pan-India appeal. Even RRR had a predominantly south base to it but its narrative was such that it catered to an all-India audience, and the results were there to be seen. Here, the opening weekend collections are 7.35 crores*, which is just marginally better than what the Hindi dubbed version of Baahubali: The Beginning had collected back in 2015 with 5.15 crores coming in.

Meanwhile, Brahmastra continued to have footfalls trickle in during the fourth weekend, what with 3.5-4 crores in (across all languages). The film has done its fair share of heavy lifting as a result of which the overall collections stand at 259 crores. From here, it's all about the distance that it can cover in its quest for 275 crores milestone. The film will cover 270 crores for sure and maybe even a little more since it too would benefit from the Dusshehra holiday on Wednesday. However, it's the journey from there to 275 crores mark that would be quite interesting.

*Estimates. Final numbers awaited

Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources