Ajay Devgn’s latest comedy outing, Son of Sardaar 2, co-starring Mrunal Thakur, Ravi Kishan, and Deepak Dobriyal in lead roles, finally hit theatres on Friday. The film opened to a decent response at the box office, collecting around Rs 6.75 crore (India net) on its first day, according to industry tracker Sacnilk. The film recorded an overall Day 1 occupancy of 22.56%, starting with just 10.24% during morning shows, improving to 17.88% in the afternoon, 21.84% in the evening, and peaking at 40.27% during night shows, nearly double its early-day performance. In terms of regional performance, Tier-2 cities like Lucknow and Jaipur led the occupancy charts with 39% and 37%, respectively. Meanwhile, traditional strongholds for Hindi films like Delhi-NCR and Mumbai lagged slightly behind, recording 30.50% and 20.25% occupancy respectively.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW VIDEO
What’s striking, however, is how Son of Sardaar 2 opened significantly lower than Ajay’s last release, another sequel, Raid 2, which had a solid opening day collection of Rs 19.25 crore. In comparison, the new film’s first-day figure is also less than half of Shaitaan, Ajay’s recent horror blockbuster, which had opened at Rs 14.75 crore. That said, it still fared better than Maa, starring Kajol, which managed Rs 4.5 crore on its opening day last month.
Also Read | Triptii Dimri and Siddhant Chaturvedi’s Dhadak 2 seethes with the rage of filmmaker Shazia Iqbal
Despite the modest opening, Son of Sardaar 2 did manage to outperform its immediate competition, Shazia Iqbal’s Dhadak 2, which collected just Rs 3.35 crore on its opening day, according to Sacnilk. Both films, however, are struggling to draw audiences in the face of stiff competition from Mohit Suri’s romantic musical Saiyaara, which is currently in its second week and has already amassed a staggering Rs 285.75 crore.
Interestingly, Son of Sardaar 2 was initially scheduled for release last week. However, in light of Saiyaara’s unexpected box office dominance, Ajay chose to delay the release by a week to avoid any sort of indirect clash, a strategic move in contrast to 2012, when the original Son of Sardaar released opposite Yash Raj Films’ Jab Tak Hai Jaan. Back then, despite immense pressure, Ajay went ahead with the clash, which ended up affecting both films’ long-term box office performance. Whether the sequel can sustain and grow in the coming days remains to be seen.
