Finally, Aiyaary has hit the screens. The film was originally supposed to arrive on the weekend of 26th January. However, with Padmaavat and PadMan moving around with their release plans, the Neeraj Pandey film had to push ahead a little. Nonetheless, the spy thriller has seen a solo release for itself and that too on an appropriate count of screens (1750).

The start hasn’t been too impressive though as the first day occupancy was just about ordinary. With 3.50 crore* coming in, the film’s release has been sub-par as the collections were expected to be better. More so since Neeraj has seen better days with films like M.S. Dhoni – The Untold Story [21.30 crore] and Baby [9.33 crore]. As a matter of fact his Special 26 [7 crore] too had seen a far better start.

Nonetheless, there is some consolation from the fact that for Manoj Bajpayee this is his highest opening day in a leading role part. On the other hand Sidharth Malhotra too has seen better opening in his last few films:

Baar Baar Dekho – 6.81 crore

Ittefaq – 4.05 crore

A Gentleman – 4.04 crore

Aiyaary – 3.50 crore*

Amongst these, only Ittefaq emerged as a reasonable success due to low costs involved. However, Aiyaary is an expensive film and hence would have to do a lot better than what Ittefaq did in its lifetime [30 crore] to even come close to being a coverage affair. There is a lot of ground that Aiyaary needs to cover from this point on and these are going to be crucial days ahead.

*Estimates. Final numbers awaited

Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder

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