Box office: Chhichhore scores good Rs35 crore in its first weekend

Director Nitesh Tiwari’s Chhichhore (2019) has had a good first weekend at the India box office. The film, starring Sushant Singh Rajput, Shraddha Kapoor and Varun Sharma, made Rs35 crore in its first three days, as per figures shared by BoxOfficeIndia.com. 

Chhichhore opened with Rs7 crore on Friday, which was slightly on the lower side. But the positive word-of-mouth publicity and good reviews seem to have resulted in good growth for the film over the next two days. The collection rose to Rs12 crore nett on Saturday and Rs16 crore on Sunday. 

According to our trade sources, Chhichhore has been made on a budget of around Rs50 crore. So it will need to hold well on the weekdays and the second weekend. It has a strong chance of doing this because of the response so far and its target audience of college students. 

This is Tiwari’s first film since the blockbuster Dangal (2016). Starring Aamir Khan, that film was based on the lives of wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat and his daughters Geeta and Babita who became champion wrestlers themselves. 

Meanwhile, the Hindi version of the Prabhas-starrer Saaho had an average second weekend with a collection of Rs14.25 crore nett. The total of the Hindi version of the Sujeeth film currently stands at Rs129.25 crore. But the Tamil and Telugu versions of the film have struggled, as a result of which the film, made on a mammoth budget of Rs350 crore, now seems likely to fall short of that figure even with its global collection.

Correction, 10 September: Chhichhore's budget was wrongly reported as Rs70 crore in an earlier version of this report.