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Brahmastra Part One: Shiva, starring Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt on Sunday emerged as the latest film in Hindi this year to cross the ₹200 crore mark at the box office. With this, the film has now become only the second Hindi movie release of 2022 to enter the ₹200 crore club after Vivek Agnihotri’s The Kashmir Files.
On Sunday, the Day 10 earning of the film was at ₹17 crore. As per the HindustanTimes report, the film is reportedly performing like Hollywood blockbusters that earn big on weekends after laying mostly dormant all week.
As per the Pinkvilla report, in the second weekend, the film collected ₹41 crore across the country. The Hindi version collected ₹38.35 crore while the languages collected approximately ₹2.65 crore in the second weekend. Earlier, the film showed a 50 percent growth in its second Saturday collections across India.
Meanwhile, the box office collection of Brahmastra crossed ₹300 crore mark gross globally at the end of its first week.
Helmed by Ayan Mukerji, the sci-fi film starred Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Amitabh Bachchan, Mouni Roy and south actor Nagarjuna in the lead roles.
As per trade reports, the sci-fi action film collected over ₹100 crores at the box office in India, after three days of its release, which is the highest first-week collection by any Hindi film this year.
The film has performed unexpectedly well despite receiving weak reviews from critics. While some appreciated director Ayan Mukerji's larger-than-life vision of 'Astraverse' which blends Hindu mythology with elements of fantasy, something on par with VFX-dominated Hollywood superhero film franchises. Some of the key factors that have made the film successful are Marketing, Differentiated content appealing to youth (VFX and cinematography); pent-up demand, and a strong star cast. Reacting to the mixed reviews, Alia Bhatt said audience members have the right to offer their opinions and even criticise a film.
"We have two options: either we focus on positive things or keep thinking about the negative ones. Criticism, opinions and feedback are the right of the audience. We only hope to get positive things rather than negative," Alia said at a media interaction.
Nagarjuna said that he chose to do a film like Brahmastra because he saw it as a "rare opportunity" that came at a time when there’s a growing exchange of talent across various film industries in India.
"A film like ‘Brahamastra’ is the right opportunity. The bridges have opened up and so everyone is going everywhere. And India has become one industry and that is how it should be because Indian people love films and cricket. I am so happy that this film helped the industry grow and actors are getting to do different roles in different languages," he added.
Billed as a trilogy, Brahmastra's director told in an interview that he wishes to release the second part by 2025 and the untitled last chapter will come out by 2026.
The film is about a deejay named Shiva, who sets out on a journey to find the origins of his special powers with Isha (Bhatt), a woman he falls in love with at first sight. Bachchan features as Guru, Shiva's mentor. The film is currently in theatres in 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada. "RRR" director S S Rajamouli presented Brahmastra in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.