Mumbai, Mar 31 (UNI) Salman Khan’s highly-awaited mass actioner, ‘Sikandar’, which finally hit the theatres on March 30, has received a lukewarm reception at the box office.
Belying the fans' expectation of the movie ushering in the festive spirit of Eid in style, the initial collection can at best be called decent, but is not on par with the star’s previous commercial successes.
As per number aggregator Sacnilk, the film’s first-day net domestic collection across all languages is Rs 26 crores. The gross collection is Rs 31 crores, and alongside the Rs 10 crore overseas sales, the total worldwide collection for day one stands at Rs 41 crores.
Meanwhile, in domestic sales, ‘Sikandar’ witnessed an overall 20.95 per cent Hindi occupancy on Sunday in 2D. On the other hand, it recorded an overall 22.96 per cent Hindi Occupancy in IMAX 2D.
Trade analyst Taran Adarsh took to X (formerly Twitter) to compare the opening of ‘Sikandar’ to Salman’s previous successful stints.
He wrote, “Sikandar performs well on its opening day but falls short when compared to Salman Khan's previous opening days. Given post-pandemic trends for highly anticipated films, an opening day of Rs 40 cr plus was expected from Salman khan this time... Collecting this number was even more crucial, considering Sikandar had the biggest release ever for a Hindi film in India – 5500 screens/ approx 22,000 plus shows per day. However, despite releasing on a Sunday, similar to Tiger3 [Diwali 2023], Sikandar does not feature in Salman Khan's top 5 opening days list.”
https://x.com/taran_adarsh/status/190658734150403698
Adarsh emphasised that Salman’s top 5 biggest openers have always recorded sales of over 30 crores at the domestic box office. These include films like ‘Tiger Zinda Hai,’ ‘Sultan’ and ‘Tiger 3’ among others.
Observers feel a major contributor to the dwindling sales of the actioner could be that several pirated versions of ‘Sikandar’ have already started swirling on the internet.
‘Sikandar’ also features Rashmika Mandanna, Kajal Aggarwal, Sharman Joshi, Prateik Smita Patil, and Sathyaraj in key roles. Sajid Nadiadwala has backed the title with AR Murugadoss at the helm.
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