Two megastars of Indian cinema battle it out at the box office with their newest offerings ‘Sikandar’ and ‘L2: Empuraan’; it seems like the latter has the edge as our bird purveys the view from a branch in South Mumbai…
By Rodrigues C
WELCOME from a hot and sweaty, sweltering city. We aren’t even completely in the summer – but actually, it feels much worse.
For Bollywood, its Khan-mania. Yes, we mean Salman Khan mania. Arguably, the biggest of the Khans, Salman Khan has been promoting ‘Sikandar’, which is his newest offering after ‘Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan’ in 2023. And this Bollywood-crazy nation is completely focused on ‘Bhai’.
Other than in Mumbai, Khan is rarely photographed in the other parts of India. It’s only during his movie promotions that the rest of India gets glimpses of Khan. But this time around, his promotions all over India for ‘Sikandar’ have been curtailed due to security concerns.
The trailer launch for the AR Murugadoss directorial. which was originally planned with 30,000 people was cancelled. Instead, the trailer was launched on March 23 at a media event.
Usually, movie trailers are released weeks before they hit theatre, but this one was an exception.
‘Sikandar’ released only yesterday (March 30).
Khan, along with co-star Rashmika Mandana, promoted the movie only in Mumbai and on digital platforms.
On day one, ‘Sikandar’ collected just about £2.5 million domestically; worldwide its racked up £5.3m as Eid Al-Fitr and the end of fasting was marked more yesterday in territories such as the UK.
‘Sikandar’ collected £3.16m on Eid, which was celebrated today (March 31) in India. The movie was released keeping the Eid holiday in mind. In the recent past most of Khan’s big movies have been released during Eid.
The movie is being screened in 5,500 cinemas with almost 22,000 shows every day, which is the highest for a Hindi movie.
Khan’s recent releases and their openings included ‘Tiger 3’ (£4.4m), ‘Bharat’ (£4.1m), ‘Prem Ratan Dhan Payo’ (£3.9m), ‘Sultan’ (£3.6m), ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’ (£3.3m), ‘Ek Tha Tiger’ (£ 3.2m), ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ (£2.69m), ‘Kick’ (£2.61m), ‘Dabangg 2’ (£2.08m), ‘Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan’ (£1.3m) and ‘Radhe’ (£4,70,000).
So, there is another movie that’s making a lot of noise in March and unexpectedly winning the box office race too. And it’s not in Hindi or Telugu or Tamil or Kannada.
Well, it’s in Malayalam (the official language in the southwestern state of Kerala) and features South superstar Mohanlal.
Made on a budget of almost £18m, which is massive for a Malayalam language film, ‘L2: Empuraan’ opened in theatres on Thursday (March 27).
On day one, the Prithviraj Sukumaran directorial minted a cool £6.4m at the worldwide box office. Within two days of its release, this sequel to Mohanlal’s 2019 blockbuster ‘Lucifer’ collected ₹100 crore (£9.9m) becoming the first Malayalam movie to reach this figure in the shortest time frame. It’s now Mohanlal’s third ₹100 crore grosser after ‘Pulimurugan’ and ‘Lucifer’.
It’s now also the tenth Malayalam movie to cross the ₹100 crore mark.
Leaving ‘Sikandar’ aside, there wasn’t much for Hindi movie lovers in India in March other than John Abraham’s ‘The Diplomat’, Vikram Bhatt directorial ‘Tumko Meri Kasam’ and ‘Baida’. Abraham’s thriller, which is directed by Shivam Nair had a decent £400,000 opening on March 14.
Its first week collection stood at £1.8m. During the second week, the film had a good weekend, and a collection of almost £900,000.
The film has so far collected £4m plus at the worldwide box office. Considering it was made on a budget of about £2m, the film is already showing a profit. The good word of mouth publicity the movie has been receiving is bound to bolster its coffers in the coming days.
‘Tumko Meri Kasam’ staring Anupam Kher, Esha Deol and Adah Sharma released on March 21. Despite being directed by Bhatt, the courtroom drama had little impact at the box office. It collected just about £14,000 on day one. In the first weekend the movie collected only £42000, making just about £56,000 in the first week. The film is already out of the theatres. ‘Baida’, staring Sudhanshu Rai and Manisha Rai also hit theatres on March 21. As things stand, the supernatural thriller has collected only around £95,000 at the box office.
April will see the return of Sunny Deol to the big screen in ‘Jaat’; he was last seen in ‘Gadar 2’ in 2023. Other big movies of the month include ‘Kesari Chapter 2’ featuring Akshay Kumar, R Madhavan and Ananya Panday, Sanjay Dutt and Mouni Roy’s ‘The Bhootni’, big budget Telugu film ‘The Raja Saab’ with Prabhas and Sanjay Dutt, and ‘Phule’ starring Pratik Gandhi and Patralekhaa. The line-up seems interesting. But it’s the audience call, after all.
