Box office: Shamshera has disappointing first weekend

The Hindi film industry was taken aback as the long-awaited period epic Shamshera only registered 15-20% occupancy on Friday. The Ranbir Kapoor-starrer's overall weekend numbers aren’t very encouraging either, but it did see a bit of growth on Sunday in some mass centres like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.

There was a 20% increase in Shamshera's earnings on Sunday, according to the trade website BoxOfficeIndia.com and the film’s weekend total stands at approximately Rs31 crore nett.

This is extremely underwhelming but other recent big films like Heropanti 2 and Runway 34 have also failed despite huge expectations. Shamshera's Monday collection will be lower and it will be difficult for the film to maintain during the week.

One wonders if this business would in turn influence the buzz around Ranbir Kapoor’s next biggie, Brahmastra Part One: Shiva. Meanwhile, by Saturday, Thor: Love and Thunder had collected about Rs93 crore and is likely to cross the Rs100 crore mark by the end of this week. By the end of its fifth week, Jugjugg Jeeyo reached Rs78 crore.