Box office: Thugs Of Hindostan's underperformance works in favour of Badhaai Ho, Andhadhun

Thugs Of Hindostan, the big Diwali release of 2018, hasn’t lived up to its expectations. The film, starring Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh, saw a record opening with Rs50.75 crore nett. However, second day onwards its fortunes have only spiralled down.

Often, when a particular film shows an alarming drop in earnings, exhibitors tend to increase the number of shows of the other films in the run. In this case, the underpeformance of Thugs Of Hindostan helped two of Ayushmann Khurrana’s holdover releases — Badhaai Ho and Andhadhun.

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Badhaai Ho, that released on 19 October, is currently in its fourth week at the box office. The Junglee Pictures-produced family entertainer collected Rs8.85 crore nett in the first five days of its fifth week. Its India business so far stands at an impressive Rs116.90 crore nett, as per the numbers shared by Boxofficeindia.com.

The film earned of Rs1.50 crore nett on its fourth Monday (12 November) which is better than it’s fourth Friday collection of Rs1.35 crore nett on 9 November.

Directed by Amit Sharma and starring Khurrana, Neena Gupta, Gajraj Rao and Sanya Malhotra, Badhaai Ho is based on a middle-aged woman’s pregnancy and the reaction of her family and the society to the unexpected development. Made at an estimated budget of Rs30 crore, the film had initially released in 2000 screens across India.

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Meanwhile, Viacom18 Motion Pictures's Andhadhun, that hit the screens on 5 October, is making a decent collection even in its sixth week. According to Boxofficeindia.com, the dark-comedy earned Rs1.65 crore nett in the first five days of its sixth week.

Showing a steady run, Andhadhun bagged Rs25 lakh net each on its sixth Friday, Monday and Tuesday, and bagged Rs40 lakh on Saturday and Rs50 lakh on Sunday. The film, directed by Sriram Raghavan, has so far made Rs69.18 crore nett in India.

Made at an estimated budget of Rs25 crore, Andhadhun had released across 800 screens.

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According to a source, with Thugs Of Hindostan not doing well, most exhibitors have increased the shows of Badhaai Ho. “Most theatres increased Badhaai Ho shows from two to five shows a day,” the source informed.

Film exhibitor Akshay Rathi, however, believes that Badhaai Ho is not eating into the share of Thugs Of Hindostan, that released in 5000 screens across India. "It is not as if exhibitors have cut down on Thugs Of Hindostan shows and allocated those to Badhaai Ho, Andhadhun. It is all but natural for any theatre to increase a couple of shows of a successful holdover release," he said, adding, "Badhaai Ho and Andhadhun have more or less made their business, and I don’t see how this increase in one or two odd shows impacts Thugs Of Hindostan."

I have started concentrating on concepts and scripts: Ayushmann Khurrana on Andhadhun, Badhaai Ho

Rathi though admitted that the downward spiral of Thugs Of Hindostan might result in a drop in its screen count. Says Rathi, "There are no major releases this Friday (16 November). I think there is a couple of Hindi releases and a Hollywood film. Given that Thugs Of Hindostan hasn’t quite taken off, you could expect a 10-15% cut in the number of screens in the second week."

Meanwhile, the slide continues for the Vijay Krishna Acharya film. Opening with a record Rs50 crore on Thursday (8 November), the film's earning has trickled down to just Rs4.25 crore nett on its first Tuesday (13 November).

My costume weighed more than 30-40kg: Amitabh Bachchan on Thugs Of Hindostan

Produced by Yash Raj Films, Thugs Of Hindostan has so far earned Rs128 crore nett in India. Made at an estimated budget of Rs300 crore, the film had released across 5000 screens domestically.