Haiwaan box office collection day 2: Akshay Kumar-Saif Ali Khan film crosses Rs 5 cr mark

Haiwaan box office collection day 2: Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan’s latest film Haiwaan is off to a slow start at the box office after opening to mixed reviews from critics and audiences on Friday. The film, which marks the actors’ reunion 18 years after Tashan, opened to Rs 3 crore net in India. Collections dipped slightly on Day 2, with the movie earning Rs 2.5 crore, taking its two-day India net total to Rs 5.5 crore and domestic gross to Rs 6.6 crore.

According to trade tracker Sacnilk, Haiwaan recorded an overall Hindi occupancy of 16.02% across 5,759 shows in India on Saturday. Morning shows registered 6.85% occupancy, which rose to 15.46% in the afternoon and 16% in the evening before peaking at 25.77% at night. Delhi-NCR recorded 21% occupancy across 579 shows, while Mumbai registered 14.3% across 379 shows.

Haiwaan is among Akshay Kumar’s lowest openers of the post-pandemic era. Some of his films that opened to even lower numbers include Sarfira (Rs 2.50 crore), Selfiee (Rs 2.55 crore), Bell Bottom (Rs 2.70 crore) and Mission Raniganj (Rs 2.80 crore).

The opening is particularly underwhelming for a much-awaited Bollywood entertainer headlined by two major stars. In comparison, Akshay and director Priyadarshan’s previous theatrical collaboration, Bhooth Bangla, earned Rs 28.7 crore on its opening day and went on to gross Rs 271 crore worldwide.

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Haiwaan is facing tough competition from deviotional drama Hanuman Ansha and Mirzapur: The Movie, which hit theatres last week. The Ali Fazal-Pankaj Tripathi gangster drama has earned around Rs 245 crore so far. Even in its second week of release, it has managed to outperform Akshay and Saif’s recent release.

Haiwaan’s box-office struggles have also come amid mixed reviews from critics. An excerpt from SCREEN’s review of Haiwaan read, “In Priyan’s world protagonists and antagonists are always arrayed in black and white, with lashes of heavy-handed humour thrown in. The mix works in some of his movies, mostly his loud comedies in which the cast is tasked with delivering dialogues when not hanging off cliffs: Haiwaan is the usual mix of genres in Priyadarshan’s films, in which tonal switches abound, the first half setting up the premise of an innocent man being imprisoned for a crime he didn’t do, and the second turning into an unintentional comic police procedural.”