Producer-Director Karan Johar’s highly ambitious film Brahmastra starring Bollywood heavyweights such as Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Amitabh Bachchan, Nagarjuna, and even Shah Rukh Khan in a cameo role was released on September 9, 2022, in over 8000 screens across the world.
The first-day collection of the movie, which is said to have been made on a whopping Rs 410 crore budget, grossed around 35-36 crore nett in all its versions. Trade website BoxOfficeIndia.com has reported Brahmastra’s collection at around Rs 35-36 crore. This is being considered the highest opening day on a non-holiday for original Hindi content.
Brahmastra is the most expensive Hindi film ever made at 410 crores, breaking the record of Thugs Of Hindostan which was made at a cost of around 310 crores. Incidentally, Thugs of Hindostan earned around 52.5 crores on its opening day.
In comparison to these numbers and statistics for Brahmastra, Prashanth Neel’s KGF 2, starring South star Yash in the lead role of Rocky, not only grossed more at the box office but was also produced on one-fourth the budget of Brahmastra.
According to reports, KGF- Chapter 2 which was made on a budget of Rs 100 crore, collected Rs 134.50 crore in India and Rs 164 crore worldwide on the first day of its release. The Hindi version raked in Rs 53.95 crore at the box office on the first day, making it the highest opening day collection for a film in Hindi.
‘KGF2’ DAY 1: ₹ 134.50 CR… #KGF2 has smashed ALL RECORDS on Day 1… Grosses ₹ 134.50 cr Gross BOC [#India biz; ALL versions]… OFFICIAL POSTER ANNOUNCEMENT… pic.twitter.com/ZB0NVJMKBR
— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) April 15, 2022
So if the budget and the first-day collection of these two movies are compared, KGF-2 emerges as the clear winner, as it not only grossed a higher first-day collection than Bramhastra but was also made on one-fourth of the budget giving it a clear edge.
King-sized disappointment: Karan Johar’s Brahmastra fails to impress
Notably, Karan Johar’s movie Brahmastra, which is now in theatres, failed to make an impression on film critics and reviewers despite all of the hype surrounding it. Well-known film critic Taran Adarsh took to Twitter on Friday to review the movie. He completely wrote off the movie and called it a ‘king-sized disappointment’. Giving the Ayan Mukherjee directorial movie a two out of five-star rating, Adarsh said that the film was ‘low on content’. He opined that the movie was ‘all gloss, no soul’.
Taran Adarsh was not the only one who was unimpressed with the movie. Many other movie reviewers and media houses gave the movie abysmal ratings ranging from 2 to 3.5 stars out of 5.
Financial Express went on to take a dig at the movie by calling it a ‘film for kids’. “Brahmastra review: Ayan Mukherji’s Rs 410 crore grand vision ends up becoming a film for kids!”, read the headline of Financial Express’ report reviewing the big-budget movie.
In fact, moments after the bad reviews of the movie started to appear, the stock price of major multiplex chains in the country started to fall. According to estimates, PVR and INOX, the two major listed theatre chains, lost over Rs 800 crore in market capitalisation on Friday. The stocks had started to gain in recent days, but they crashed on September 9, coinciding with the release of Brahmastra.
Karan Johar’s movie faces boycott calls
For the unversed, Karan Johar’s Brahmastra has been facing trouble ever since its trailer premiered. It came under attack after its lead actress Alia Bhatt also told people that they were under no compulsion to watch her movie. Besides, a video of actor Ranbir Kapoor, who is playing the protagonist in the movie, surfaced where he said he was a beef-eating foodie. This too attracted a lot of criticism. To add fuel to the fire, the Hinduphobic tweets of Dharma Productions’ Development Executive Shreemi Verma also went viral on social media.
With the screenshots of her anti-Hindu tweets, netizens started to post on Twitter that she is associated with Dharma Productions, and linked to the upcoming movie Brahmastra. Netizens called for a boycott of the movie for its association with such a Hinduphobic person. She eventually deactivated her account to control the backlash of her remarks.
