In the last seven days alone, there was a significant increase in viewership for The Kashmir Tracks (Kashmir Files). More than Rs. 100 crores were made with hundreds of thousands of people going out to watch it every day. Considering this overwhelming response from the audience, there was no surprise when Vivek Agnihotri-directed thriller film had shown consistent showings on its second week as well – even though its competitor had already come out onto the scene and gained some momentum.
On Thursday, the film saw a noticeable slump in earnings when compared to Wednesday’s collections of Rs. 10.03 crores and only managed to bring in Rs. 7.25 crores. This was inevitable because from Monday there had been signs of stagnation–the settling down stage–and after reaching its peak, things inevitably would have slowed down eventually anyways; one day this slump will come too for low budget films, but what isn’t expected is that these numbers are still quite good for mid-budget films on their opening day–it might just be because the recent earnings made by the Anupam Kher-led film over these last fourteen days are so astounding that they simply can’t be matched yet. When accounting for revenue up until now at Rs 207.33 crores it can safely call itself an all-time blockbuster–even if there has been some slippage lately.
Meanwhile, Bachchhan Paandey could not recover from this spiral of trouble. Sadly for him, his life changed the moment he became involved in The Kashmir Files fiasco. His film company plummeted to new lows when they only managed to make Rs. 50 crores* within the span of a week. However, no matter how bad things got – his film would have done Rs. 110-125 crores at least if they didn’t find themselves in this situation where no one wanted anything to do with them anymore – people were still interested enough to watch it because they really liked his work and thought that he deserved another chance.
*Estimates. Final numbers awaited
