Box office: As Bell Bottom ends poor first week, Punjabi film Chal Mera Putt 2 makes impressive opening

The domestic box-office collection of the Akshay Kumar-starrer Bell Bottom, which dipped on Monday, continued to slide through the film's first week in theatres. Directed by Ranjit M Tewari, the film made Rs1.40 crore nett, Rs1.30 crore nett and Rs1.15 crore nett on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, according to BoxOfficeIndia.com.

Also featuring Lara Dutta Bhupathi, Huma Qureshi, Vaani Kapoor and Adil Hussain, Bell Bottom has so far made a total of Rs18.75 crore in its first eight days. The movie was released on Thursday 19 August across India with the exception of Maharashtra where theatres are still shut after the second COVID-19 wave.

There are murmurs about theatres being allowed to reopen in Maharashtra in September. If that does happen, it remains to be seen if the producers decide to release the film in the state given its not-so-encouraging numbers in the first week elsewhere in the country.

According to trade sources, Bell Bottom was made on a budget of about Rs150 crore. Even if the film had been released in Maharashtra, the state that generates the highest revenue for Hindi films, it would still have struggled to get anywhere close to a quarter of that number.

Meanwhile, the long-delayed Amitabh Bachchan- and Emraan Hashmi-starrer Chehre was released in theatres today to a poor response. This is not surprising after seeing the response to a big-budget film headlined by a big star like Bell Bottom.

Meanwhile, the Punjabi movie Chal Mera Putt 2 was re-released to a very good opening in Punjab.