Box Office: Shaky Start For Vikram Vedha, PS-1

It was a shaky start for Vikram Vedha as it collected only Rs 10.58 crore (Rs 105.8 million) on its first day of release.

Given the fact that Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan were leading the show in title roles and the film was an official remake of its much loved Tamil namesake with the same director duo Gayatri-Pushkar at the helm, a start of at least Rs 15 crore (Rs 150 million) was feasible.

More so, since audiences had started getting back to theatres after Brahmastra Part One: Shiva's hit run. Chup: Revenge Of The Artist also saw reasonable footfalls the Friday before.

Hence, the numbers for Vikram Vedha on the first day were rather surprising.

What worked in the film's favour was that the critical acclaim was universal. As a result, word-of-mouth also ranged from decent to good.

In fact, this word-of-mouth resulted in better collections on Saturday. Footfalls were a little better on Sunday.

All of this ensured that the opening weekend stands at Rs 36.94 crore (Rs 369.4 million), which is decent enough.

Of course, the film is still not out of the woods since it is a well mounted project with good spends on production as well as the star cast.

Hence, the numbers need to keep coming right through this week, including on the Dussehra holiday on Wednesday.

Ultimately, the film would have an eye on the big prize -- the Rs 100 crore club.

The other release of the week, Ponniyin Selvan-I, is finding audiences primarily in the south.

It has been made for Tamil audiences since the story is a part of their history, but an attempt has been made to reach out to the pan-India audience as well, as a result of which the Hindi version also saw ample promotion and marketing.

This is what allowed the first day collections to be in the expected tune of Rs 1.85 crore (Rs 18.5 million).

Since the film primarily catered to south audiences, the relatibility factor with the Hindi-speaking audience was lost. Due to this, collections did not multiply over Saturday and Sunday.

As a result, the weekend collections stood at Rs 7.50 crore (Rs 75 million) which is less than what a film of this scale, size and mounting warranted.

There is the Dussehra holiday coming up, and that should add numbers.

Interestingly, PS-I has earned Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) in its worldwide gross box office collection in the first week of its release, the makers told PTI.

Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources.