Hollywood director Chuck Russell’s first Hindi movie Junglee hasn’t generated wild numbers at the box office. Starring Vidyut Jammwal in the lead, the action adventure has opened to Rs3.25-3.50 crore yesterday in India, as per figures shared by Boxofficeindia.com.
Despite a Hollywood name attached to the film and the subject revolving around animals, there was limited pre-release excitement for the film.
Junglee review: The elephants too will trample Vidyut Jammwal’s poor action adventure drama
Still, Rs3.50 crore might appear to be an average or decent number. But the problem with Junglee is that it is made at an estimated budget of Rs40-45 crore and has been released on over 1,000 screens in India. This is a big number for a film with no known star. With such numbers earned on the first day coupled with the negative reviews, the film’s chances appear bleak at the moment.
Salman Khan Films’ Notebook also released yesterday as a launch pad for Pranutan Bahl, daughter of Mohnish Bahl and granddaughter of Nutan, and newcomer Zaheer Iqbal. The film has opened to a poor number of Rs60-70 lakh.
Notebook review: Impressive visuals of Kashmir can’t cover up for shallow story-telling
The association of a big name producer certainly doesn’t seem to have worked here. Also, the film has received mostly average reviews and word of mouth.
Directed by Nitin Kakkar, Notebook is made at an estimated budget of Rs15-20 crore and released in around 800 screens. It needs a huge growth today and tomorrow [Sunday] to have any chance of being safe at the box office.
On the other hand, Dharma Productions’ Kesari had a good hold on its second Friday yesterday as the Akshay Kumar-starrer made Rs4.25 crore. The grand total of the film currently stands at Rs110.25 crore.