Latest news with #RajkumarGupta
Pink Villa
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
Raid 2 Box Office Day 30: Ajay Devgn starrer thriller adds Rs 40 lakh on 5th Friday, targets Rs 160 crore finish
Raid 2, directed by Rajkumar Gupta and starring Ajay Devgn, Vaani Kapoor, and Riteish Deshmukh in the key roles, is heading towards an end at the box office. The movie enjoyed a solid theatrical run for the straight four weeks and has now entered its final legs. Raid 2 adds Rs 40 lakh to the tally on Day 30, Cume reaches Rs 157 crore Bankrolled by Panorama Studios and T-Series Films, Raid 2 kickstarted its box office journey with Rs 19 crore on Day 1. The movie witnessed a superlative box office trend and smashed the Rs 100 crore mark in its second weekend. Despite facing a dent from the new releases- Mission: Impossible 8, Final Destination: Bloodlines, and Bhool Chuk Maaf - it continues to lure the audience. The thriller drama stormed past the Rs 150 crore mark in its third week and is now about to wind up its theatrical run somewhere around Rs 160 crore net mark. As per estimates, the Ajay Devgn starrer added Rs 40 lakh to the tally on the fifth Friday, taking the total cume of 30 days to Rs 157.20 crore net in India. The movie will stick to the cinemas for one more week until the arrival of Housefull 5 in cinemas. Box office collection of Raid 2 so far at the Indian box office Day/Week Net India Collection Extended Week 1 Rs 92.75 crore Week 2 Rs 38.85 crore Day 16 Rs 2.75 crore Day 17 Rs 4.25 crore Day 18 Rs 5.50 crore Day 19 Rs 1.65 crore Day 20 Rs 2 crore Day 21 Rs 1.50 crore Day 22 Rs 1.35 crore Day 23 Rs 0.80 crore Day 24 Rs 1.50 crore Day 25 Rs 1.75 crore Day 26 Rs 0.55 crore Day 27 Rs 0.65 crore Day 28 Rs 0.50 crore Day 29 Rs 0.45 crore Day 30 Rs 0.40 crore (est.) Total Rs 157.20 crore Raid 2 is in theaters now Raid 2 is playing in theaters near you. You can book your tickets from the online web portals or at the counter. Stay tuned to Pinkvilla for more updates. Disclaimer: The box office figures are compiled from various sources and our research. The figures can be approximate, and Pinkvilla does not make any claims about the authenticity of the data. However, they are adequately indicative of the box-office performance of the films in question.
Pink Villa
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
Raid 2 Box Office Day 26: Ajay Devgn starrer adds Rs 0.55 crore on 4th Monday, nears Rs 155 crore mark
Directed by Rajkumar Gupta, Raid 2, starring Ajay Devgn, Riteish Deshmukh, and Vaani Kapoor, is holding well at the box office. Released on May 1, the movie has witnessed a solid box office run and emerged as a clean hit for the makers. Bankrolled by Panorama Studios and T-Series Films, the thriller drama collected Rs 92.75 crore in its first week and stormed the Rs 100 crore mark in the second weekend. The movie stormed Rs 38.85 crore in the second week, followed by Rs 19 crore in the third week. It added another Rs 4.05 crore to the tally in the fourth weekend despite facing competition from Bhool Chuk Maaf. As per estimates, the movie added Rs 0.55 crore to the tally on Day 26 (4th Monday), taking the total cume to Rs 154.20 crore net in India. The movie is now inching towards the Rs 160 crore mark. It will keep on luring the audience at least for 10 more days until the arrival of Housefull 5 in cinemas. Let's see how the movie performs in the coming days. On the work front, Ajay Devgn has an exciting slate of releases. Of which, Son of Sardaar 2 and De De Pyaar De 2 are releasing in cinemas this year. Box office collection of Raid 2 so far at the Indian box office Day/Week Net India Collection Extended Week 1 Rs 92.75 crore Week 2 Rs 38.85 crore Day 16 Rs 2.75 crore Day 17 Rs 4.25 crore Day 18 Rs 5.50 crore Day 19 Rs 1.65 crore Day 20 Rs 2 crore Day 21 Rs 1.50 crore Day 22 Rs 1.35 crore Day 23 Rs 0.80 crore Day 24 Rs 1.50 crore Day 25 Rs 1.75 crore Day 26 Rs 0.55 crore (est.) Total Rs 154.20 crore Raid 2 is in theaters now Raid 2 is playing in theaters near you. You can book your tickets from the online web portals or at the counter. Stay tuned to Pinkvilla for more updates. Disclaimer: The box office figures are compiled from various sources and our research. The figures can be approximate, and Pinkvilla does not make any claims about the authenticity of the data. However, they are adequately indicative of the box-office performance of the films in question.
Indian Express
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Amit Sial on love for Raid 2, Kesari 2: ‘Instant reactions in theatres are a different high altogether'
Amit Sial turned heads first with his role in Kanu Bahl's Titli in 2015. Right when he was planning to quit the film industry, the advent of streaming in India helped him bag exciting parts in Inside Edge, Mirzapur, Qala, Jamtara – Sabka Number Ayega, and Maharani. These roles have now led him to memorable supporting roles in hit films like Karan Singh Tyagi's period courtroom drama Kesari 2: The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh and Rajkumar Gupta's crime thriller Raid 2. In an exclusive interview with SCREEN, Sial discusses getting love for these films, how theatrical releases hit differently than OTT shows, and the 10-year journey since his breakthrough in Titli. Did you expect Rajkumar Gupta would approach you for Raid 2? Of course, it came as a pleasant surprise. It's very kind of Rajkumar Gupta to etch me into the script. It was an amazing experience. The way it's reached the audience's hearts, it's incredible! Nobody expected that. We always knew it's an author-backed part, but itna mail kha jayega logon se, mazza hi aa gaya yar! When you read the script, did you expect that the role would turn out to be even bigger and better than the first part? I knew in my heart if Rajkumar Gupta wants me in the film, toh unhone bahut soch-samajh ke hi kuchh kia hoga. Because we had a lovely time working on the first part. We're very fond of each other. I didn't question him much. I knew I was in very safe hands. It was lovely to reconnect with the whole crew and Ajay bhai. It was a very smooth operation, I must say (laughs). How did you crack Lallan Sudheer's new shade of a beimaan imaandar income tax officer? It was written so well! I just had to follow that by heart. That's all what I did. Usko jitna nichod ke, mazze le ke kar sakta tha, bas wohi kia maine. The character is also like that. Dimag zyada nahi lagana chahiye. The more you enjoy, the more audience would enjoy it. Have you watched it with the audience? How did they react to the twist in your character arc? I have. See, you can't watch the audience's faces in dark halls. Par unke comments and laughter se hi kafi mann bhar aaya tha. I've mostly done all my work on OTT. You can't gauge the audience's reactions instantly there. After a long time, I've had two theatrical releases in Kesari 2 and Raid 2. The audience has loved my work in both, especially Raid 2. I witnessed that directly. It was very fulfilling to know that you completed the purpose you were cast for. Speaking of Kesari 2, how did you get into the head of a relentless British sympathizer, who's determined to defend the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre on their behalf? I didn't have to research independently because it was a very well-researched and written script. Karan Tyagi and I did discuss and insert this input, which you can see in the end, that he realises that the British are doing wrong. But if you're working with the Crown in that era, then your loyalty rests with them. It was very well accepted that ye humare aaka hain. Theek hai, badhiya hai jo chal raha hai. Half of the Indian Army was working for the Crown. But obviously, the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre was unprecedented. That's the changing point in the game. Why do you feel Akshay Kumar's character C Sankaran Nair has a change of heart, but your character doesn't? It's a real story, so that happened to that person. But so many others continued to work for their masters, for the Crown for years after that. It was against our Indianism. In hindight, we see that it was wrong. But the freedom movement came much after that. Mahatama Gandhi also worked under the British for years. In fact, the whole world was theirs at that time. So a lot of us had just surrendered to that idea we've been held captive, so let's just make the best of it. But when leaders started going against the British, they were educated under their system only, and they used that against the British. You once stopped accepting supporting roles because you wanted to be the lead actor. After the praise for Kesari 2 and Raid 2, is that still an ambition? Of course it is. Who doesn't dream of becoming a lead actor? I want people to give me the opportunity of carrying a movie on my shoulders. I tried too, but the two films I did as a lead — Tikdam and Jo Tera Hai Woh Mera Hai (2024) — they weren't put on the same pedestal as these two films were. Let's see, maybe this will open more doors for me. Did you venture into more family-friendly films because you wanted to play a conventional lead? It became necessary to cut away and disconnect myself from intensity. I was feeling burnt out. If I give in to stereotyping, the audience would also get bored. Where is my involvement as an actor? I know I can pull off anything. So why not show my versatality to them? It becomes a personal responsibility to make the audience realise that you're not limited to one kind of a role, but can do a range of parts. I'll continue to do it all my life. If I feel burn out, I have to stay true to myself, either take a break or switch to some other piece of work that challenges you. Don't you feel you get a better range as a supporting actor? For instance, Lallan Sudheer has more juice than the lead character of Amay Patnaik? I'm sure Ajay bhai was also enjoying his character. But it's written in a way that he can't do tomfoolery. If he goes into Lallan's zone as well, it'll fall apart. It's a huge responsibility! The whole film is banking on his image and heroism. Abhi ye ajeeb si baatein ho rahi hain ki I overshadowed him, but that's laughable. We have different roles with different beliefs, so we're operating differently. And I feel being a lead actor is a more focused job where you can't deviate from your part. A guy like Lallan Sudheer can do anything because he's been placed in that zone. In early days, you took break from acting to go to Australia, where you did a bunch of odd jobs. When you returned to acting, did those experiences help you as an actor? Hundred percent! When I came back from Australia, I felt for the longest time that I wasted seven-eight years of my life away from acting. But when I started getting into it seriously, then I realised these are the factors which make me better than my peers. My life experiences are my biggest strength. Even if you wash dishes at home, you gain even from that. These daily ordeals should never go out of your life. You broke out on streaming in 2017, but do you think our streaming landscape has the same advantages it had back then? Jaldi mein ho gaye sab beech mein! OTT was a gamechanger. It should've always been that. It was showing real stories and high quality content. Then it turned into herd mentality. Studios started competing with each other. Similar stuff began coming from different places. Then you're competing with best of the world. Those guys give time and do everything in depth. That depth has vanished from our streaming content. Then you've just become television. Plus, they made so much content so quickly. The bank is so huge that out of all the shows, only one or two get popular. Everything else seems very redundant. So I think they should go on back foot and think about this. It happens in every industry that you've to rediscover and reinvent yourself. So our industry is also going through a metamorphosis right now. Do you think being an OTT actor restricted you to streaming for the most part, instead of giving you more opportunities in the theatrical space? When you didn't have work, and were just twiddling your thumb and staring at walls at home, OTT came as a lifesaving boon. I don't mind working on OTT. The point is I want to do good work and good roles. They should just make you feel challenged, and jismei aapke input se chaar chaand lage. There's no point of doing blink-and-miss parts. It'll neither reach the audience nor it'll be good for me creatively. Of course, experiencing something collectively on the big screen with instant audience reaction is a different high altogether. Every actor craves for it. The bottom-line is the work should be purposeful, the medium doesn't matter. It's 10 years of Kanu Behl's Titli this year. You consider the role of Divakar as one of your most challenging. Why is that so? Just being a part of that family that's depicted in Titli. We worked very hard for it. We did a lot of workshops. We had to change our mental space 360 degree and come down from the comfortable place we're in. It was torturous at that point of time. We hated Kanu then, but it was all for a good cause. When we watched the film, we knew exactly what he was trying to do to us. We were shooting in Sangam Vihar in Delhi. In order to get there, you have to go through these big, exuberant luxury farmhouses to reach a slum. I said if these people crossed these farmhouses every day, then it must cross their mind to break into them at night. Your mind starts operating that way. Also Read | Mirzapur actor Amit Sial dismisses Taapsee Pannu's complaints against industry outsiders as 'nuisance talk': 'Should they have a kitty party?' Why were those workshops torturous? They aimed at a mental shift, which involved stepping down from the pedestal you're on in life. It's a very difficult process. In the middle of the shoot, my then-girlfriend, who's now my wife, came to visit me on Holi in Delhi. She looked at me and said, 'Your eyes have changed. Something has shifted inside you.' So that's what workshops do.
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First Post
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- First Post
Ajay Devgn's 'Raid 2' director Rajkumar Gupta on part three: 'Saurabh Shukla and Riteish Deshmukh have met in jail now and...'
Talking about the same, director Rajkumar Gupta spoke exclusively to Firstpost and spilled the beans on the responses and the idea of Raid 3 read more Ajay Devgn and Riteish Deshmukh's Raid 2 has crossed the Rs 100 crore mark and is now a commercial success. Talking about the same, director Rajkumar Gupta spoke exclusively to Firstpost and spilled the beans on the responses and the idea of Raid 3 as well. Edited excerpts from the interview What are the responses that you have received for Raid 2 so far? I think it's been brilliant. As you can see from the box office numbers as well, people have been coming and watching the film and appreciating the film, so we are all happy about it. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD So, what were your box office expectations when it was about to launch? I think here, you know, in terms of numbers, it is very difficult for me to say. Difficult in the sense, you know, the thing is that we try and make a film and hope that that audience likes it, you know. And that was the first attempt to make a good film so that the audience likes it. And box office expectation is, I mean, you want your film to work and you know when the film works, the audience will come. Also, I want to ask you that there is a gap of 7 years between the two films. So, when did you feel that this is a story that can be taken ahead and yes, this is a character that can have another story? I think, you know, when we made the first one, of course, you just wanted your films to work, you know, and it worked commercially and critically. And at that point, also, at least in my mind, I had not thought that there would be a sequel. But a couple of years down the line, we thought that, you know, that it will be interesting to see where we can take these characters but we needed a good story and it took some time for a good story to come and in 2021 when we decided to follow a story and that's when we decided to make the film and it took one, one and a half years to write the script and then shoot it and to release. I interviewed Ritesh last year for PILL and he played such a righteous and such an honest character in that web series and now in this, you give him the role of the central antagonist. So how did this casting happen? I think I really like him as an actor. He's a fabulous actor. We all know he's, he does, he's known for his comic films, but he's such a fabulous actor when he does antagonist as well as he has played so many, he has played protagonists in Marathi films. And when I finished Pill, I enjoyed working with each other and we told ourselves that, you know, if we have an opportunity, we'll work together again. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD So once we finished writing Raid 2 and I saw what the character of Dada Bhai was, I decided to approach him and he really liked the script and that's how and because we were doing, as you said, Pil was a different character and this was a very different character so it was really exciting to do this together. What was your brief to Ritesh about playing this character and how was your prep for this when you were writing? I think all of us, all the writers, Ritesh, me, Jaideep Yadav and Karan, we all know what you see in the film, that's the character we built. And there was brief, you know, as he's such a fabulous actor that once we had narrated him the script once we had spoken about the character. I think everything was on paper and he followed it. And what you see in the film is what we built together while, you know, working on the film. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD How did you decide that you have to integrate Saurabh Shukla's character in the sequel as well? We decided to bring two, three characters back from the, two characters back from the first part. One was Tauji and one was Lallan. While you know Tauji's story was in itself, was done, we thought maybe it would be worth getting him back. For the longest time, we couldn't figure out how to get him back. But then, Ritesh, all of us, we got an idea how to get him back. And similarly, Lallan, we had decided that he was one character that could have a different arc or a journey in this story, the story that we were telling. So that's how they came about. Amit Sial has turned out to be such a popular character from Raid 2. He's a fabulous actor and he's been doing such good work and I have deep respect for him. In fact, in the first grade. Also, he was a very popular character. He was not as popular as Tauji but he was a character who was very popular and he had a very unique arc to his character. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD And when Amit is playing that, you know that whatever is on the paper, it will go four or five notches up. And whatever was in the paper, whatever was written, those one-liners, the way he delivered it, it really, really, really added to the film. And that's why he's such a fabulous actor. We have seen Ajay Devgn in heroic roles like Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai and Singham. How would you describe the character of Amay Patnaik? I think that's the uniqueness of it. Ajay sir, you know, he's a superstar. He's such a fabulous actor and an intelligent actor. And he knows which character to take where. You know, he knows the difference between when he's playing a Singham or when he's doing a Drishyam or when he's doing Raid World. So he brings in a lot of integrity, a lot of kindness, graciousness and lot of power to even a simple character, even a middle class government employee like Amai Patnaik. So it's his persona, as well as the combination of what the character is on the paper and his persona, and his skill that he's able to make this middle class person also larger than life, but still keep it in check, where he appears real. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD And in the final shot of the movie, we see Tauji and Adabhai shaking hands. So, have you cracked the idea? Is it going to be two-on-one in part three? No, I just wrote it out of fun. One day I thought it would be a good ending shot. So that's how I just wrote it one day. I got up in the morning and I got this thing. Okay, so what if what happens? Okay, the film ends here. So what can I do? Uncle has gone back to His parole is done. He has gone back to jail and this guy is entering jail. So dono ko ek jail mein bhej dete hain. So it was something which out of fun I had written and it came in the film. So let's see where it goes.
Hindustan Times
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Raid 2 box office prediction: Ajay Devgn set to better his own Drishyam 2 record, will beat Sunny Deol's Jaat
Raid 2 box office prediction: Ajay Devgn is returning to the big screen with Rajkumar Gupta's Raid 2, a sequel to his 2018 hit, Raid. The film, which releases in theatres on May 1, is an important one for both the actor and the Hindi film industry. Bollywood has had a lean run in 2025 since the early success of Chhaava, and will look to turn the tide with Raid 2. And if early signs are to be believed, things look positive for Raid 2. (Also read: Raid 2 movie review: Ajay Devgn and Riteish Deshmukh's face off fares well in parts, weak villain brings film down) Raid 2 sold approximately 2.3 lakh tickets in advance bookings for its opening day. As per Sacnilk, the film collected ₹6.52 crore gross in pre-sales, a figure higher than Ajay's previous film, Shaitaan, which made ₹4.1 crore in advance bookings. Raid is also getting one of the widest releases for a Bollywood film this year. Trade sources say that the film has 3500 screens in India, which could increase to 4000+ if word of mouth helps the film pick up. Raid 2 has started on an impressive note, with over 21% occupancy in the morning shows, a very good figure for a Thursday release. Trade insiders estimate the film will easily open in India's ₹15-17 crore range. Optimistic estimates are pegging it closer to the ₹20 crore mark. Regardless, the film will still open ahead of Ajay Devgn's Drishyam 2, which earned just over ₹15.1 crore on its opening day in 2022. This has been Ajay's highest-grossing film post-pandemic, and Raid 2 looks to change that. The ₹15-crore opening will also be higher than Sunny Deol's recent release, Jaat, which earned ₹9.5 crore and Akshay Kumar's Kesari Chapter 2, which opened at ₹7.75 crore. Raid 2 sees Akshay reprise his role as honest IRS officer Amey Patnaik as he faces off against Riteish Deshmukh, another corrupt politician. The film also stars Vaani Kapoor, along with Saurabh Shukla in a special appearance, also reprising his role from Raid. The film has been directed by Rajkumar Gupta.
