Box office: Taapsee Pannu’s Thappad fails to deliver a slap on opening day

Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad has not earned any brownie points on its opening day yesterday. The Taapsee Pannu-starrer collected just Rs2.85 crore nett in the domestic circuit, as per figures shared by BoxOfficeIndia.com.

Thappad has mostly got positive reviews, but that has not reflected in its numbers, at least on the first day. This could be because the film's content may appeal mostly to an urban, more aware audience and the single-screen film fan and the toxic male may not be drawn to it.

However, all is not lost because the word-of-mouth publicity for the film has been terrific. Hence, it has a good chance of seeing a jump in collections today and tomorrow. According to our trade sources, the film has been made on a moderate budget of about Rs20 crore.

Gangs Of Banaras, the other release of the week, was a non-starter.

Meanwhile, the Ayushmann Khurrana-starrer Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan showed a decent hold at the box office with a collection of Rs1.75 crore nett on its second Friday. The grand total of Hitesh Kewalya's directorial debut is now at Rs44.10 crore nett.

The number is way below what a film starring Khurrana is expected to collect these days, largely because Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan deals with homosexuality, a subject that is still taboo for most Indian families, especially in the non-metro regions.

The horror film Bhoot: The Haunted Ship, the other holdover film, continued to struggle with a collection of just Rs90 lakh nett on its second Friday. The Vicky Kaushal-starrer has so far made a total collection of only Rs23.90 crore nett at the domestic box office.