South’s superstar Ajith’s Tamil film ‘Valimai’, which released a day before Alia Bhatt’s film ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’, has rocked the first day of its release. With this, actor Pawan Kalyan’s film ‘Bhimla Nayak’, released with this, has also got an amazing opening. The first day collection of English film ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ released with both these films does not seem to reach even half of these films. The collection of South Indian films has been overshadowing the collection of English films in the last two years. This time too, the film ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ has been promoted more in areas where the number of theaters is less or in those mediums which do not reach the audience who can spend money every week for English films. The brunt of this seems to be happening to the film ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’.
The film ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ is a film made in a hurry after Salman Khan refused to act in Bhansali’s film ‘Inshallah’. Not only Alia Bhatt, this film is also a turning point in the career of Sanjay Leela Bhansali, whose big film production company was not ready to invest money on this film. Good luck to Jayanthi Lal Gada, who runs Pen Studios, who has persuaded two big banks to invest money on this film. By selling the film’s OTT rights to Netflix and satellite rights to Zee Cinema, Jayanthi Lal Gada has recovered a major part of the film’s hefty cost, but its real fate will be decided by the box office performance of the film. This is the third time after ‘Kalank’ and ‘Sadak 2’, when Alia Bhatt is not getting the results that she would have expected even after all her hard work.
Dharma Productions’ film ‘Kalank’, which released two years ago, earned the highest in terms of opening day in the box office collection of Alia Bhatt’s films. The film made a splash with an opening of Rs 21.60 crores but the film was rejected by the audience on the first day itself and the film was declared a flop by earning only Rs 62.75 crores in the first weekend. The lowest opening of any Alia Bhatt film so far was that of Imtiaz Ali-directed Highway, which earned Rs 3.42 crore on the first day. Alia Bhatt’s films that have opened 10 crores or more include ‘Udta Punjab’ (Rs 10.05 crore), ‘Badrinath Ki Dulhania’ (Rs 12.25 crore), ‘2 States’ (Rs 12.42 crore), ‘Shaandaar’ (13.10 crores). crores), ‘Gully Boy’ (Rs 19.40 crore) and ‘Kalank’ (Rs 21.60 crore). Apart from ‘Gully Boy’ in these films, only ‘2 States’ and ‘Badrinath Ki Dulhania’ have been his hits. ‘Udta Punjab’ was considered to be an average successful film considering its cost, while ‘Shaandaar’ and ‘Kalank’ are included in the list of Alia’s flops.
According to the initial figures about the film ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ till Friday night, this film seems to be doing a business of about nine crores on the first day. After the final figures, it is expected to improve in some areas and if the film manages to touch the magic figure of 10 crores then it will be a big achievement for Sanjay Leela Bhansali. At the same time, there are reports of Pawan Kalyan’s film ‘Bhimla Nayak’ collecting around Rs 35 crore on the first day of release, while the first day collection of Ajith’s film ‘Valimai’ is said to be Rs 25.30 crore. Apart from English, the film ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ has also been released in Telugu.