The royal box office clash: ‘Rustom’ takes over ‘Mohenjo Daro’

So, this Friday (August 12) was a day of a royal clash at the box office as Tinu Suresh Desai’s ‘Rustom’ (produced by Zee Studio) and Ashutosh Gowariker‘s ‘Mohenjo Daro’ (produced by Siddharth Roy Kapur and Sunita Gowariker) hit the theatres together. We were quite wondering who would emerge victorious, and looks like we have the answer now.

Before we get into statistical analysis, here a few quick fact checks. Both the films had enough elements to evoke curiosity amidst the audience. ‘Mohenjo Daro’ is a romantic-adventure flick with a historical backdrop behind. With Ashutosh Gowariker having delivered a grandeur called ‘Jodha Akbar’ starring none other than Hrithik himself which was beautiful in so many ways, it comes as no surprise that expectations from ‘Mohenjo Daro’ would touch the sky as well. On the other hand, Akshay Kumar has been giving us intense films like ‘Airlift’, ‘Baby’, ‘Special 26’ for quite some time now, and is on a roll! ‘Rustom’, being a thriller, also revolves around the much-talked-about Nanavati case of 1959, only promised us another tight, gripping tale.

However, Friday is over and the verdict is out.

Looking at the box office results, we see that ‘Mohenjo Daro’ has bagged  around Rs. 8.75 Crore on its first day. For ‘Rustom’, the figure touches around Rs. 14.11 Crore. That’s quite a gap, right?

Further, ‘Rustom’ is doing far better business in multiplexes while ‘Mohenjo Daro’ dragged crowd mostly at single screens. After ‘Sultan’, ‘Fan’, and ‘Housefull 3’, ‘Rustom’ so far has the fourth best opening of 2016. On the other hand, ‘Mohenjo Daro’ has one of the lowest opening amounts, out of all Hrithik Roshan films.

Not only in terms of box office collections, but in terms of occupancy too, ‘Rustom’ is leading with around 40%, whereas ‘Mohenjo Daro’ is struggling with just 30%. The gap seems to be widening.

A strong growth for ‘Rustom’ in the coming week is being projected. For ‘Mohenjo Daro’, it looks tough to recover the backlog and reach a considerably good collection.

Also Read: Akshay Kumar’s ‘Rustom’ becomes his second highest opener in UAE

Ranjini Maitra

Journalist. Writer. Reader. Enthu cutlet. Mood-swing machine. Day dreamer. Sandwiched between ‘live life fully’ and ‘lose some weight’. Mantra of life: Love and love more.