Mumbai, June 4 The much-hyped Akshay Kumar-starrer, ‘Samrat Prithviraj’, had an unimpressive opening day, its box-office collections adding up to Rs 10.6 crore.
The Yash Raj Films production ranks No. 7 among this year’s big Hindi releases, below another Akshay Kumar film, ‘Bachchan Pandey’, and barely above Alia Bhatt’s woman-centric virtuoso act, ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’.
This year so far has clearly belonged to films dubbed in Hindi, the chart-toppers being ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ (Rs 53.95 crore), followed by Marvel’s ‘Dr Strange in Multiverse of Madness’ (Rs 28.35 crore) — the figures tell us that even Benedict Cumberbatch has a greater drawing power — and ‘RRR’ (Rs 20.07 crore).
Even the second edition of the old Akshay Kumar hit supernatural comedy, ‘Bhool Bhulaiya’, with Kartik Aaryan playing the lead character, is two notches above ‘Samrat Prithviraj’, at Rs 14.11 crore.
In the words of the trade website, www.bollywoodmoviereviewz.com, considering the subject, ‘Samrat Prithviraj’ had a “very weak trailer” and “lacks the grandeur needed for historical movies”, which is seen in Bhansali productions, or in ‘RRR’.
“It has opened purely on Akshay Kumar’s star power and will depend on the audience’s word of mouth for growth,” the website added. The film has been released on 3,750 screens across India in Hindi and 200 screens in Tamil and Telugu and 1,200 screens in overseas territories.
Worldwide, these numbers add up to 4,950 screens, according to the website, which makes it a humongus opening. ‘Samrat Prithviraj’ was produced at a cost of Rs 300 crore.
‘Samrat Prithviraj’, notes www.bollywoodmoviereviewz.com, has been sold to Amazon Prime Video as a part of a Rs 250-crore four-film deal with Yash Raj Films. To quote the website, “Two of the four films — ‘Jayeshbhai Jordaar’ and ‘Bunty Aur Babli 2’ — have flopped, leaving the streamer to handle the loss.”
