Weekly box office: Shamshera’s disastrous opening adds to Bollywood woes [Exclusive]

It’s been another disastrous week for Hindi Films. The highly anticipated Hindi solo release, Yash Raj Films

shamshera
bites the dust with depressing numbers at the box office. The grim storyline continued after the debacles of the past week

Blow: The first case
and

Shabaash Mithu. What went wrong? Trade Specialist

Girish Wankhede
written exclusively for

Filmibeatexplaining the debacle.

shamshera, Ranbir Kapoor’s prime period action flick had everything a potential blockbuster deserves, save for its poor writing. This is the fourth consecutive flop for Yash Raj Films after

Bunty Aur Babli 2,

Jayeshbhai Jordaar
and

Samrat Prithviraj. With this failed venture, it’s high time we opened up to reinvent ourselves for new-age audiences wary of bulky, soulless drama.

Shamshera Opening Weekend Collections

shamshera
opened on Friday, July 22 with box office figures of Rs 10.25 crore, which was not bad compared to the first day’s collection of Rs 10.50 crore from

Gangubai Kathiawadi
and Rs 14.11 crore from

Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2. But finally, the critics of

shamshera
and word of mouth was negative. The collections could not grow the first weekend. On Saturday July 23,

shamsheraCollections of stood at a dismal Rs 10.5 crore and on Sunday July 24, the film generated Rs 11 crore – making the opening weekend of

shamshera
stand at Rs 31.75 crore. It was well below expectations and a clear mandate from the public that they rejected the film. At this time, WhatsApp messages from

shamshera
being a Hindu-phobic movie was already doing the rounds.

Shamshera Collections First Monday

Then it was the first Monday (July 25), which sets the course for each outing for another week in a row. It should logically represent at least 50% of its Opening Day collections. But

shamshera
collected a measly Rs 2.5 crore making it a big disappointment. The four-day box office collection of

shamshera
now sits at Rs 34.25 crore, which is quite concerning considering the cost of landing around Rs 150 crore.

Thor: Love and Thunder, Jugjugg Jeeyo, Hit: The First Case and Shabaash Mithu

The collection of the first week of the previous Hindi version of Rajkummar Rao

Blow: The first case
was Rs 8 crore, making it a legit FLOP. Another disaster of the same week was the star of Taapsee Pannu

Shabaash Mithuwhich raised Rs 2 crore in its first week and declared a FLOP.

Thor: Love and Thunder
generated Rs 93.50 crore during its two-week run in India, making it a HIT.

Jugjug Jeeyo
raised Rs 78.50 crore during its four-week run, making it another FLOP.

Coming Soon – Ek Villain Returns and Vikrant Rona

Friday (July 29) will see the heady mix of Hindi and regional Indian cinema.

The Return of Villain Ek
is the Hindi sequel to the 2014 super hit

Ek naughty
and stars John Abraham, Arjun Kapoor, Disha Patani and Tara Sutaria.

So is the Kannada movie

Vikrant Rona
starring Sudeep and Jacqueline Fernandez, which is released simultaneously in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. So this is the Telugu movie

Ramarao on duty
with Ravi Teja and a Malayalam film

Papapan
with Suresh Gopi.

Also, the third installment of the superhit Marathi franchise

time passes
comes out like

hobby 3
with Prathamesh Parab and Hruta Durgule.

The

shamshera
the jolt is indeed huge and the week ahead is NOT so bright for Hindi cinema either. The average advertising design and the lack of visibility of

Return of the Villains
is not a good sign. Indeed, the visibility quotient of

Vikrant Rona
is bigger and it also boasts of the presence of Salman Khan in its promotional event.

Overall sentiment for movies this week seems weak and that’s alarming.

Edited by Shweta Parande.