Ajay Devgn kicked off the year with a bang as ‘Shaitaan’ raked in over Rs 150 crore at the Indian box office. His second release, the long delayed ‘Maidaan’ centered on the life of Syed Abdul Rahim, hailed as the architect of Indian football’s golden era from 1952 to 1962.
Produced by Boney Kapoor and helmed by Amit Ravindernath Sharma, known for ‘Badhaai Ho’.The film which released on the occasion on EID was expected to deliver big numbers but the film has failed to live up to the expectation of an Eid release, the benchmark set by Salman Khan.
In its extended first week because of the Eid holiday the film earned only Rs 28.35 crore while in the second week it collected Rs 10.25 crore. It entered the third week on a good note as it collected Rs 80 lakh on Friday, Rs 1.65 crore on Saturday and Rs 2 crore on Sunday.
On Monday the film crashed to Rs 50 lakh only to witness a jump of 40 % with the collection of Rs 70 lakh and on Wednesday the collection jumped by more than 60 % to earn Rs 1.10 crore and on Thursday the film crashed once again to collect Rs 55 lakh as per early estimates by Sacnilk. The total collection of the film now stands at Rs 45.65 crore.
Ajay was supposed to have three more releases this year – ‘Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha’, “Raid 2′ and ‘Singham Again’. According to the latest reports, at least one of these will be pushed to 2025.
There was something to cheer about for Maidaan as it managed to go past the 1 crore mark all over again on Wednesday. The film had gone below this mark during the start of the weekdays but then Maharashtra Day and Labour Day partial holidays meant that there were added footfalls. Since Maidaan has found good word of mouth coming its way, it gained maximum benefits and added some moolah.
That said, it’s still painful that such well made film is unable to garner the kind of attention that it actually deserved. To think of it, had the film actually opened with the kind of numbers that its merits warrant then it would have benefitted so much from the holiday season.
After Eid also, there have been number of full and partial holidays, and to top it all it had been a lean period with no major releases not just in April but entire May as well. At the very least it’s a 100 Crore Club film and going by its merits, the 200 crores mark should have been ideally breached
