Sitaare Zameen Par box office collection Day 1: Aamir Khan's film barely gets a double digit opening as he tries to prove cinema supremacy, earns Rs 11.5 cr

Indian Express

4 hours ago

Sitaare Zameen Par box office collection Day 1: Aamir Khan is back on the silver screen with his latest film Sitaare Zameen Par and while the makers have tried to push the film via its extensive round of promotions on social media, it seems like the results aren't what Aamir would have hoped for. The film had more than 9500 shows on its opening day and didn't have much competition in the theatres, but, despite that, it has only made Rs 11.5 crore, as per industry tracker Sacnilk.
Aamir has been promoting Sitaare Zameen Par by constantly reminding the audience that they won't get a chance to watch this film on a streaming platform in a few weeks' time, so this might be their only chance in the near future to watch the film. This was his way of pushing the theatrical business as he believes that the model of the movie business has suffered greatly since the pandemic because of the 8-week window that is followed by OTT platforms. It is yet to be seen if his bet will pay off as the film has received lukewarm reviews, and even the opening day collections aren't as big as he might have hoped. While the most advanced booking reports had pegged the movie to do under Rs 10 crore on its opening day, the 'spiritual sequel' of 2007's Taare Zameen Par has done better than that.
The average occupancy rates across the Hindi shows were 21.34%, as the morning and afternoon shows achieved around 16% occupancy, while the evening and night shows did slightly better and saw 20.21% and 32.50% occupancy respectively. As per an advance booking report by Sacnilk, which mentioned the total number of shows organised and tickets sold, the average occupancy of the movie came out to just around 12 people in every theatre.
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Aamir's last film, 2022's Laal Singh Chaddha, which failed at the box office, had similar number of shows on its opening day and earned around Rs 11.7 crore. During its lifetime, the film made Rs 61.36 crore. Almost 18 years ago, Taare Zameen Par, which was also promoted in a similar vein, made Rs 63 crore during its run.
It is interesting to note that even though both – Laal Singh Chaddha and Sittare Zameen Par – are remakes, the latter has a much smaller budget, and this time around, it's only Aamir who is doing all the heavy lifting as he is the only established star on the film's poster. After letting go of huge OTT deals and talking about bringing back the true theatre-watching experience, Aamir and the team will be hoping that this weekend goes better for them than it did the last few times.
The cast of the RS Prasanna directorial also includes Genelia Deshmukh, Aroush Datta, Gopi Krishnan Varma, Vedant Sharmaa, Naman Misra, Rishi Shahani, Rishabh Jain and Ashish Pendse, among others. The story has been penned by Divy Sidhi Sharma, and the film has been jointly produced by Aamir and Aparna Purohit. Music for the film has been composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, and the lyrics have been written by Amitabh Bhattacharya.