Raazi Box Office Collection Week 1: Alia Bhatt's spy thriller makes Rs 56.59 crore

Meghna Gulzar's latest offering is an adaptation of Harinder Sikka's novel Calling Sehmat. In the lead roles are Alia Bhatt and Masaan star Vicky Kaushal. The movie has been praised by audience and critics alike. Add to that, word of mouth helped in gathering people in the theatres. Hence, at the end of its first week, the movie raked in Rs 56.59 crore in India.

Raazi collected Rs 5.35 crore on Thursday and helped its India earnings.

As Taran Adarsh pointed out, the movie was made and promoted on a budget of Rs 37 crore, so it is already very profitable. Not only that, the movie also collected Rs 18.08 crore from overseas box office.

Moreover, Alia Bhatt's movie saw a very good opening weekend. In fact, the weekdays were consistently good as well for Raazi. "The biz remained consistently above ? 5.25 cr from Mon to Thu, which indicates the word of mouth has translated into BO numbers," Adarsh tweeted.

Raazi has also recorded the fifth-highest collection in terms of week 1 in Bollywood.

Set just before the Indo-Pak war of 1971, Raazi revolves around the life of Sehmat, an Indian spy who is married to a Pakistani military officer, Iqbal. The movie has been praised for its nuanced portrayal of nationalism sans bravado, jingoism and Pakistan bashing.

Meghna Gulzar told IANS, "They are human too, they are just like us. And to shows ourselves good we don't have to show others bad or evil. It was our intention to show what we wanted with simplicity and truth for which we didn't have to become preachy or develop propaganda. The story was such that we did not need these additional traits."

Vicky Kaushal too, commented on the character of Iqbal in an interview to PTI and said, "To try breaking the quintessential mold of the Army guy and the Pakistani guy. When we mix the two, an image always emerges - he would be crude, shrewd and a fanatic. Iqbal's character breaks the image. That was the beauty of this role."

Raazi also stars Soni Razdan, Sanjay Suri, Rajit Kapur, Shishir Sharma, Jaideep Ahlawat and Kanwaljjeet Singh.

(With agency inputs)