Box office: Brahmastra shows robust advance booking, Liger continues its downward spiral

The Vijay Deverakonda-starrer Liger (2022) had a rather muted first week after a disappointing opening weekend at the box office. Directed by Puri Jagannadh, the Hindi version of the film continued its downward spiral from Monday, 29 August, onwards. 

As reported by the trade website BoxOfficeIndia.com, the film collected Rs18 crore nett in the first week, wherein it collected Rs1.35 crore nett on Monday, followed by a steady decline to reach Rs85 lakhs nett on Thursday.

While the collections have not been seen as being too dismal overall; the lack of interest, along with the over-hype has been seen as the film’s undoing. Liger had collected Rs13.75 crore nett on the weekend, which included the paid previews of Thursday, 25 August.

The film, which is made at a budget of Rs120 crore, does not seem to have much of a chance at recovering its costs now.

On the other hand, in what is being seen as almost a lease of life for Hindi cinema, the much-awaited Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Brahmastra (2022), which is due to be released on 9 September, has been seeing a lot of interest.

The advance bookings for the fantasy adventure film opened on Friday, 2 September, for its 3D version, which have seen steady bookings. BoxOfficeIndia.com reported that while the bookings were mainly open at the 3D-equipped PVR cinemas chain, over 10,000 tickets were sold for the weekend across the country for the coming weekend.

This has been the most interest in a Hindi film’s advance booking during the pandemic, barring KGF 2 (2022), which is originally a Kannada-language film.

Amongst other films, the Hindi version of the Telugu film Karthikeya 2 (2022), starring Nikhil Siddhartha and directed by Chandoo Mondeti, did decent business on its third Monday by collecting Rs50 lakhs nett, making its overall total collection Rs20 crore nett plus.