Box office: Rashtra Kavach Om, Rocketry (Hindi) do poorly on first weekend

After a poor opening of Rs1.35 crore nett, there wasn’t much hope left for Rashtra Kavach Om (2022) at the box office on the weekend, given the largely negative reviews and poor word-of-mouth publicity. And sure enough, the Aditya Roy Kapur-starrer made a meagre Rs1.25 crore and Rs1.50 crore, respectively, on Saturday and Sunday, according to trade website BoxOfficeIndia.com.

Directed by Kapil Verma and also starring Sanjana Sanghi, Jackie Shroff, Ashutosh Rana and Prakash Raj, Rashtra Kavach Om, according to trade sources, was made on a moderate budget of Rs35 crore. Yet, given that the film has made only Rs4.10 crore nett in its first three days, even this moderate target now seems insurmountable.

The Hindi version of R Madhavan’s Rocketry: The Nambi Effect (2022) has fared worse despite mostly positive reviews and word-of-mouth publicity. The biopic on controversial aerospace engineer S Nambinarayanan had a weekend collection of only Rs3.85 crore in the language.

Jugjugg Jeeyo (2022) performed much better than both the new releases combined, despite being in its second weekend. The film starring Varun Dhawan, Kiara Advani, Anil Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor made Rs13.25 crore nett on the weekend to take its grand total to a decent Rs63.42 crore.