Mohit Suri’s romantic drama Saiyaara, starring Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, is in no mood to slow down at the domestic box office. After scoring the biggest opening for an Indian film starring newcomers, Saiyaara has now crossed the Rs 100 crore mark and posed as a formidable threat to the films of superstars like Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar.
On day 5, its first Tuesday, Saiyaara even registered a slight growth from day 4, its first Monday at the domestic box office. The film earned Rs 25 crore on Tuesday, a marginal hike from its Monday earnings of Rs 24 crore. That was a drop from the massive Sunday (day 3) collection of Rs 35.75 crore, a major rise from its Saturday (day 2) earnings of Rs 26 crore, a further spike from its historic opening day collection of Rs 21.5 crore.
As per Sacnilk, the current box office collection of Saiyaara in India, after five days, stands at Rs 132.25 crore. In the process, Saiyaara has not become the rare film with newcomers to enter the Rs 100 crore club, but also surpassed the box office collections of a previous Rs 100 crore club member of this year — AR Murugadoss’ action thriller Sikandar, starring Salman Khan and Rashmika Mandanna, which collected Rs 129.95 crore in India.
Saiyaara’s next target is to surpass Akshay Kumar’s Sky Force, which earned Rs 134.93 crore. The film is most likely to achieve that feat today. Given its current trajectory, it may very well also challenge other members of the Rs 100 crore club from this year, including Aamir Khan’s Sitaare Zameen Par (Rs 164.74 crore), Ajay Devgn’s Raid 2 (Rs 179.30 crore), and Akshay Kumar’s Housefull 5 (Rs 198.41 crore).
This past weekend, Saiyaara also registered the highest opening for a romantic film ever by grossing Rs 119 crore in the first three days, as per the production house, Aditya Chopra’s Yash Raj Films. The movie, which marks Panday’s big screen debut and a critically-praised turn for Padda, who previously featured in Big Girls Don’t Cry and Kajol-starrer Salaam Venky, earned Rs 84 crore in India and brought in Rs 17.25 from international markets over the opening weekend.
The film’s impressive three-day run at the box office has beaten lifetime collection of other debuts of star kids like Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan’s Student of the Year (2012), and Jahnvi Kapoor and Ishaan Khattar’s Dhadak (2018), which earned Rs 70 crore and Rs 73 crore (lifetime) respectively. Ahaan is the cousin of actor Ananya Panday and the nephew of actor Chunky Panday.
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It is also Suri’s highest opening among his other films — Ek Villain earned Rs 16 crore on day 1, Aashiqui 2 made over Rs 6 crore, and Murder 2 earned almost Rs 7 crore on the first day of their release. Yash Raj Films have requested exhibitors to not hike ticket prices in order to keep them accessible for the youth supporting the film. The production house had also previously decided that Pandey and Padda will not engage in promotions of the film.
