Box office: Indian Premier League final plays spoilsport on the weekend

The Ayushmann Khurrana-starrer Anek (2022) was the new Hindi release last week, but the film, aimed at a niche audience, had an opening of only about Rs1.75 crore nett. Worse, it did not gather steam over Saturday and Sunday either and only achieved a total opening weekend collection of Rs5.50 crore, according to trade website BoxOfficeIndia.com. The business is close to that of the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Jhund (2022), which garnered close to Rs5 crore on its opening weekend.

Anek, which was meant to give out a strong message, has clearly not reached the numbers the film's producers would have wanted it to, given the low footfalls in cinemas on the weekend.

In fact, it was the final of the 15th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 cricket tournament that affected all the movies on Sunday. Even the collection of Kartik Aaryan's Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (2022), which has been having a great run at the box office, was hit. The film, however, entered the Rs100 crore club, with its second weekend collection of about Rs30 crore nett taking its grand total to Rs122.69 crore.

The Tom Cruise-starrer Top Gun: Maverick (2022) clocked in a weekend total of only Rs13.25 crore nett, including the Imax previews on Wednesday and Thursday.

While the box office has not given happy vibes over the weekend, next weekend looks promising with a number of biggies like the Akshay Kumar-starrer Samrat Prithviraj, Adivi Sesh-starrer Major and Kamal Haasan’s Vikram lined up for release and no major sporting distractions either.