Kangana Ranaut in Simran. (Image courtesy: Taran Adarsh)
Highlights
- Simran collected less than Kangana's last film Rangoon in first weekend
- Simran appears to be ahead of co-release Lucknow Central
- Weekdays will be crucial for a respectable total: Taran Adarsh
Kangana Ranaut's new film
Simran had a fairly lukewarm first weekend, despite the tremendous publicity its star managed to generate in the run-up to release. Collections over Friday to Sunday totalled up to Rs 10.65 crore, reported trade analyst Taran Adarsh. Saturday's business of Rs 3.76 crore was an increase of over 35% from Friday's box office receipts of Rs 2.77 crore. Sunday's ticket sales added upto Rs 4.12 crore, up 9.57% from Saturday. Mr Adarsh blamed
Simran's less than exemplary Sunday on the cricket season. "Overall, the trending was positive," he tweeted, adding that weekdays will be crucial for a 'respectable total.'
Box Office India was less charitable than Taran Adarsh in its assessment of Simran's opening weekend numbers, calling it 'poor.' Small consolation perhaps -
Simran appears to be ahead of the weekend's other release, Farhan Akhtar's
Lucknow Central, by a couple of crores.
Simran has made less money in its first weekend than Kangana's last film
Rangoon and that was considered a flop. Of course,
Rangoon was a bigger film and co-starred Shahid Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan while
Simran has a single marquee name - however, Kangana's
Tanu Weds Manu Returns was a 100 crore film on the strength of her presence and that of co-star R Madhavan's so it's not unreasonable to set high goals for
Simran.
Certainly nobody could accuse Kangana Ranaut of failing to publicise her film, even if the
headlines she generated in the past few weeks had little to do with Simran and a lot to do with her own complicated romantic past.
Simran, directed by Hansal Mehta, also lists writing credits for Kangana - unfairly, the film's actual writer Apurva Asrani has alleged.
Simran released last Friday to middling reviews - admiration for Kangana's performance as a Gujarati divorcee living abroad was qualified by criticism of the film itself. In his review for NDTV,
Raja Sen rated the film 2.5 stars and said, "It is super to watch a self-assured performer vault over any challenge a script throws, but never ideal to see a script contort in order to give the actress room to show off everything she can do - including things that don't necessarily suit the film."