New Delhi: The harsh word-of-mouth for its action adventure Thugs of Hindostan is catching up with Bollywood production house Yash Raj Films. The Aamir Khan-Amitabh Bachchan film that is touted to be YRF’s biggest project till date opened to a record-breaking ₹ 50 crore last Thursday but has witnessed a downward turn since, slipping to ₹ 28 crore, ₹ 22 crore and ₹ 17 crore on Friday, Saturday and Sunday respectively. Trade website Box Office India pointed out that the fall on Sunday was higher than the other two days, which is hugely disappointing given that most films make most of their earnings on that day.

“The downfall continues, Thugs of Hindostan gets weaker with each passing day. The writing is clear on the wall, (the film) will find it tough to sustain Monday onwards," tweeted trade analyst Taran Adarsh.

Overall, the Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan-starrer has made ₹ 117.50 crore in net box office collections from over 5,000 screens in India with almost 50% of its earnings coming in on day one. Trade experts point out that the opening weekend collections should have been far higher had there not been such steep drop in collections each day. The film is one of the biggest Diwali disappointments in recent times as far as theatrical collections go though Yash Raj has earned nearly ₹ 140 crore from the sale of satellite and digital rights. The overall budget of the film is estimated to be close to ₹ 200 crore.

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To be sure, Diwali releases have a history of opening phenomenally well and then failing to sustain. Salman Khan’s Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015) and Hrithik Roshan’s Krrish 3 (2013) ended up with lifetime collections of ₹ 194 crore and ₹ 175 crore after opening weekends of ₹ 97 crore and ₹ 49 crore respectively.

Bollywood’s hopes of festive weekends bringing much cheer aren’t playing out too well either. Apart from Thugs of Hindostan, the other big box office disappointment this year was Salman Khan’s Race 3, an Eid release that made ₹ 166 crore after an opening weekend of more than ₹ 100 crore. In fact, the two films notched up almost similar collections in the three major multiplex chains, PVR, INOX and Cinepolis over their opening weekends -- ₹ 34.80 crore by Race 3 and ₹ 34.25 crore by Thugs of Hindostan.

Box Office India, however, estimates that Thugs of Hindostan may not even match the total collections of Race 3, given the pace at which its earnings are dropping each day and the fact that the holiday period in the country is now over.

“One thing is crystal clear, Thugs of Hindostan has not met the monumental expectations. The box office numbers are doing the talking now," Adarsh tweeted.

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