Kajol has scored probably the best opening weekend at the domestic box office of her career as a solo lead with Vishal Furia’s mythological horror film Maa. It’s left far behind her last theatrical release, Revathy’s 2022 relationship drama Salaam Venky, which barely earned in single digits within its entire short-lived lifetime.
Maa earned Rs 6.75 crore on Sunday, its third day at the box office. This was a slight improvement on its earnings of Saturday at Rs 6 crore, a further spike from its opening day collection of Rs 4.65 crore. As per Sacnilk, the opening weekend earnings of Maa in India thus stand at Rs 17.40 crore.
In the process, it’s not only become the highest grossing solo film of Kajol’s career, but also surpassed several other Hindi releases of this year. Those include another horror movie, Sanjay Dutt-starrer horror comedy The Bhootnii (Rs 12.52 crore), Sohum Shah-starrer thriller Crazxy (Rs 14.03 crore), Arjun Kapoor and Bhumi Pednekar-starrer romantic comedy Mere Husband Ki Biwi (12.25 crore), and Himesh Reshammiya-starrer musical action film Badass Ravikumar (13.78 crore).
The next goalpost for Maa are to beat the box office collections of Sonu Sood’s directorial debut Fateh (Rs 18.87 crore) and Kangana Ranaut’s period political drama Emergency (Rs 20.48 crore). If it beats Emergency, Maa will also emerge as the highest grossing Hindi film led by a female actor this year.
Maa comes from the world of Vikas Bahl’s hit supernatural thriller Shaitaan last year, which starred Ajay Devgn, Jyothika, and R Madhavan. Produced by her husband Devgn, Kajol’s mythological horror also stars Ronit Roy. Some action portions of the film, including the climax, have also been directed by Devgn.
Maa is facing stiff competition from the holdover release of the previous week, RS Prasanna’s coming-of-age sports comedy Sitaare Zameen Par, which stars Aamir Khan and Genelia D’Souza among others. Also backed by Aamir Khan Productions, it’s the spiritual sequel to the actor’s 2007 directorial debut Taare Zameen Par.
After a 10-day run at the domestic box office, Sitaare Zameen Par has earned Rs 122.65 crore so far. In the process, it’s come close to beating the lifetime domestic earnings of AR Murugadoss’ action film Sikandar, starring Salman Khan and Rashmika Mandanna, which made Rs 129.95 crore in its lifetime this year.
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Aamir’s film is also inching closer to Akshay Kumar’s Sky Force, which earned Rs 134.93 crore at the domestic box office this year. However, it still has miles to go before it can breach the developing box office collection of Kumar’s other hit from this year — Tarun Mansukhani’s whodunit comedy Housefull 5, which currently stands at Rs 195.09 crore, and is close to entering the Rs 200 crore club.
Starting this Friday, both Maa and Sitaare Zameen Par will face fresh competition from Anurag Basu’s romantic anthology Metro… In Dino, which stars Aditya Roy Kapur, Sara Ali Khan, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Ali Fazal, Pankaj Tripathi, Konkona Sen Sharma, Anupam Kher, and Neena Gupta among others.
