Box office: Laal Singh Chaddha scores over Raksha Bandhan in advance sales

This Thursday, 11 August, two star-studded films in the form of Laal Singh Chaddha (2022) and Raksha Bandhan (2022) will go up against each other at the box office. The Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar-starrers are expected to bring some glory to Hindi cinema in a year that has been disastrous so far. 

Box office special: Hopes pinned on second half of 2022 after first half delivers more misses than hits

The advance booking for both the movies started on Friday, 5 August. As per the trade website BoxOfficeIndia.com, Laal Singh Chaddha has already earned Rs8 crore from advance sales, while Raksha Bandhan has earned Rs3 crore. 

Directed by Advait Chandan, Laal Singh Chaddha has a chance of being the first original Hindi film to cross Rs10 crore advance number this year. The box office expectation from the film is huge but it remains to be seen if the feature delivers a phenomenal number in the opening weekend as things have changed drastically during the pandemic. 

The advance number of Raksha Bandhan, which is directed by Aanand L Rai, is still better than the previous two films of Akshay, Bachchhan Paandey (2022) and Samrat Prithviraj (2022). 

Meanwhile, Mohit Suri’s Ek Villain Returns (2022), which released on 29 July, surprisingly had an average second weekend as the film collected Rs6.25 crore in the last three days. Starring John Abraham, Arjun Kapoor, Disha Patani and Tara Sutaria, the film’s total currently stands at Rs36.88 crore, against a budget of around Rs50-60 crore.