Saiyaara box office collection day 20: Aditya Chopra predicted Ahaan Panday, Aneet Padda's film would earn Rs 100 cr; it's earned more than three times as much

Indian Express

7 hours ago

Mohit Suri's romantic drama Saiyaara, starring newcomers Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, was never meant to be a Yash Raj Films project. Aditya Chopra's banner is best known for delivering iconic love stories like his late legendary father Yash Chopra's Kabhi Kabhie (1976), Chandni (1989), Lamhe (1991), Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Veer-Zaara (2004), and Aditya's own Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Mohabattein (2000), and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008). On the other hand, Suri, who's a product of Mahesh Bhatt and Mukesh Bhatt's Vishesh Films, is renowned for helming Aashiqui 2 (2013), Ek Villain (2014), and Half Girlfriend (2017).
But their combination has wielded great results, as Saiyaara has crossed the Rs 500 crore milestone at the worldwide box office and the Rs 300 crore mark at the domestic box office in less than three weeks. It's the highest-grossing romantic film of India, and also the highest-grossing Indian movie starring newcomers. On Wednesday (day 20), it added another Rs 2 crore to the Indian box office, a slight dip from its Tuesday earnings of Rs 2.5 crore. The current box office collection of Saiyaara in India stands at Rs 306.6 crore, as per Sacnilk.
In an interview with PTI, Suri revealed that Aditya Chopra had predicted Saiyaara's success, yet probably not to this historic extent. In fact, the producer predicted the film would make Rs 100 crore right after watching just the rough edit. 'I didn't really fall for that I think. I was not too sure. I was still like, 'Let me edit the film. Let me bring it down,'' said Suri.
Interestingly, Saiyaara was initially being developed as Aashiqui 3 by Bhushan Kumar's T-Series. However, since Suri wanted to take time in finishing his script, the movie then went to Anurag Basu, who's developing the threequel with Kartik Aaryan and Sreeleela. 'Once there was no sequel pressure or of a star cast which had an opening number to live up to, I stopped caring about the commerce. And I just went and made a film,' said Suri, adding, 'If I was making a sequel, or a franchise, I would be somewhere playing to a commerce like 'Let's make it better than Aashiqui 2. Let's make the music better'. I didn't do that. I did what's best for the film. It was such a liberating process.'
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Saiyaara marks the debut of Aneet, best known for her turn in the Prime Video India coming-of-age show Big Girls Don't Cry last year. It also serves as a launchpad for Ahaan, the first cousin of Ananya Panday and the nephew of Chunky Panday. Both the actors were strategically kept away from promotions, which seems to have paid rich dividends. 'I genuinely felt that if we arm these kids with a story, a narrative, a song, then they have a better fighting chance rather than just the way they look or how they are photographed,' Suri reasons.