Box office: Saaho (Hindi) breaks 2019's Sunday collection record

In recent times, big-budget Hindi films like Thugs Of Hindostan (2018), Zero (2018) and Kalank (2019) have suffered heavily from the second day onwards owing to negative word-of-mouth publicity and poor reviews despite a solid opening.

But the Hindi version of director Sujeeth’s ambitious project Saaho has managed to avoid a similar fate despite being panned by critics and audiences alike. After the Prabhas-starrer opened with Rs25.25 crore on Friday, it saw a slight drop on Saturday with Rs24.50 crore nett.

But all those who thought this portended a downward trend were stunned when the film went on to make Rs29.25 crore nett on Sunday, as per figures shared by BoxOfficeIndia.com. This is the highest Sunday number of any Hindi film this year.

Saaho’s overall opening weekend total now stands at Rs79 crore nett for the Hindi version. This is the second highest opening weekend number for a Hindi film this year with the top slot going to Salman Khan’s Bharat, which had made Rs90.47 crore nett.

As far as the all-India collection across languages is concerned, Saaho made Rs88 crore nett on Friday and Rs53 crore nett on Saturday. So, the film’s two-day total came to Rs141 crore nett. Along with Sunday's collection by the Hindi version (the Telugu and Tamil version collections are yet to be released), the film's grand total comes to Rs170.25 crore nett. Once the South numbers come in, we may find that the film's collection has topped Rs200 crore nett in the first weekend itself. 

Even so Saaho will not be out of the woods. Made on a massive Rs350 crore budget, the film will have to do consistently well this week and the next to become a hit. Its cause will be helped by today's public holiday on account of Ganesh Chaturthi in some parts of western and southern India.