Vikram Vedha: Advance booking of Hrithik Roshan, Saif Ali Khan film slow; lagging behind Laal Singh Chaddha, Shamshera

With barely a day left in the theatrical release of Vikram Vedha, advance ticket booking is underway. However, unlike the other film releasing on the day–Ponniyin Selvan I–Vikram Vedha has not been able to set the cash registers ringing so far. Industry insiders say that the film’s opening collections now largely depend on the reviews and how much the advance booking can pick up in the final few hours of Thursday. Also read: Ponniyin Selvan I advance booking sees shows in many cities sold out for days

As per trade sources, by Thursday evening, Vikram Vedha has sold tickets worth just over ₹2 crore in advance booking for its opening day. The figure pales in comparison to Ponniyin Selvan’s impressive day one advance booking of over ₹12 crore by the same time. But comparing the advance booking figures of a Hindi film with a Tamil film may slightly be unfair to the former as south releases tend to score higher on that number, and since Ponniyin Selvan is a larger, event film.

But despite accounting for that, Vikram Vedha’s advance booking figures are far from promising. As things stand, the figures for day one advance booking of the Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan-starrer are below the collections for films like Laal Singh Chaddha ( ₹2.8 crore) and Shamshera ( ₹2.5 crore), both of which did not do very well at the box office. It still has a few hours to make up that gap though.

However, trade analysts say the film can still redeem itself with good word of mouth. The initial reaction to the film from critics and trade analysts have been largely positive. Sources say that positive reviews and good word of mouth can give the film that much-needed push over the weekend.

Trade sources also raise some doubt at the first day box office predictions being shared for the film. Various trade analysts have claimed that the Pushkar-Gayathri film can make up to ₹15 crore at the domestic box office on its opening day. If that happens, it will be the second-highest opening for a Hindi film this year, behind only Brahmastra. However, sources from exhibition side say they are estimating a maximum of ₹8-10-crore opening for the film based on the trends so far.

Vikram Vedha is the remake of Pushkar and Gayathri’s 2017 Tamil hit of the same name. The original film starred Vijay Sethupathi and R Madhavan. Both films are loosely based on the popular folk tale Vikram-Betaal.