Box-office report: Sardaarji 2 slays Raman Raghav 2.0

For all the hype and last-minute promotions by Nawazuddin Siddiqui on the streets of Mumbai, Anurag Kashyap's Raman Raghav 2.0 appears to be heading into the abyss at the box office. The film barely reached Rs4 crore on its opening weekend.

According to BoxOfficeIndia.com, Raman Raghav 2.0 bagged a net of Rs3.75 crore on its opening weekend. The film opened with a startlingly poor Rs90 lakh on Friday and struggled to bring in Rs1.3 crore on Saturday. The third day's collections improved slightly to Rs1.5 crore, but the marginal increase does not augur well for the film.

Trade analyst Taran Adarsh pegged the figure for the first two days at Rs2.46 crore.

Released across 770 screens, Raman Raghav 2.0 is said to be made on a tight budget (under Rs5 crore). While the filmmakers are likely to recover the production cost, the meagre opening weekend numbers do not augur well for the film's distributors, Reliance Entertainment.

Remarkably,a regional film stole a march over Hindi releases yet again. Diljit Dosanjh, who received rave reviews for his maiden Hindi release Udta Punjab a week ago, emerged the surprise star at the box office with Sardaarji 2. The film bagged a net earning of Rs8.85 crore in its opening weekend, a record for Punjabi films, beating the mark of Rs8.5 crore set by Sardaarji last year. The film also set a record for highest opening collection by a Punjabi film with Rs2.05 crore on Friday.

Junooniyat, with Pulkit Samrat and Yami Gautam in the lead, also fared poorly, barely pulling in Rs2.15 crore on the opening weekend. Meanwhile, as expected, Udta Punjab slowed down in its second week, with the 10-day collection pegged at Rs53.25 crore net, as reported by BoxOfficeIndia.com.

With only a few hits this year, the trade will be eagerly awaiting Salman Khan's Sultan to set the ball rolling again. Sultan releases on Eid, 6 July.