NEW DELHI: Horror comedy Roohi has continued its impressive run at the box office, making over Rs12 crore in domestic collections as of end of Monday, according to trade website Box Office India which said these are best earnings a Hindi film has seen post the covid-19 pandemic.
Roohi made made Rs2.75 crore for its first day, higher than those notched up by Hollywood offerings like Tenet (Rs1.19 crore) and Wonder Woman 1984 (Rs1.63 crore) but substantially lower than Vijay’s Tamil film Master (Rs35 crore), the only significant movie releases post reopening of movie theatres.
Given that it will manage a decent number of screens in the coming week as well, the film should be able to cross the Rs20 crore mark, trade experts feel.
Box Office India said the Mahashivratri holiday, the film’s popular music and pent-up demand among the youth for outdoor entertainment could have contributed to the Hardik Mehta directed film’s collections adding that this is the closest the movie business has come to normalcy since the pandemic.
In fact, opening day earnings were better than previous Rajkummar Rao-starrers such as Made In China (Rs89 lakh), a Diwali release and comedy drama Fanney Khan (Rs2 crore) that had released pre-covid. With earnings of Rs70-75 lakh on the first day, the Delhi and Uttar Pradesh belt fared best for the movie with south Indian territories of Andhra Pradesh and Mysore also doing decently.
Box Office India said the film could have even gone on to do a Rs3 crore plus first day had it not been for the lockdown and restrictions in Maharashtra where Mumbai is a key territory. There are some multiplexes in cities like Pune which are not functional yet. However, most of the business continue coming from the bigger multiplexes.
To be sure, despite the fear of the film appearing too urban and up-market for small-town audiences, Roohi marks the start of new releases from popular production houses and is the first decent-sized Bollywood film to release this year.
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