It has been a few months since Indian theatres re-opened following the COVID-19-induced lockdown, but no Hindi movie has made a dent in the box office. Hardik Mehta’s Roohi seems to have broken this curse, registering the largest opening — Rs2.75 crore (net) — since cinema halls were allowed to resume operations.
This number might not look impressive but bear in mind that the coronavirus pandemic is ongoing and theatres are being run with only 50% occupancy.
Hollywood movies Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) and Tenet (2020) registered the second and third-highest openings, raking in net profits of Rs1.63 crore and Rs1.19 crore respectively.
Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari (2020), which had released in November 2020 and was the first Hindi film release after the lockdown, earned a net profit of Rs59 lakh.
As per trade sources, Roohi was made on a budget of around Rs30 crore so it has a long way to go to break even. It remains to be seen if the mixed reviews and word-of-mouth it has received will impact its numbers in the next few days.