Last Friday’s Joker, directed by Shirish Kunder and starring Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha and Shreyas Talpade has been declared a clear disappointment by trade analysts. Joker had a budget of Rs. 40 crore. The film has not been able to recover even half of it in its opening weekend.

Ask trade analyst Taran Adarsh about the film’s collections and he says, “The film is a disaster. On day one, it collected approximately Rs. 5 crore. Day two was Rs. 4.75 crore and day three was Rs. 5.75-Rs 6 crore. The numbers are a sheer disappointment and it’s doubtful it will even sustain through the week, considering its negligible growth.”

The net collections so far stand at a minimum of Rs. 15.50 crore, but film distributor Akshaye Rathi points out that the “poor promotions of the film have caused a lot of damage”. He says, “The budget of the film was quite high, but the lack of promotions is one of the major reasons that the film is facing this loss. The distributors that bought the film banked upon its promotions, which were pretty much non-existent. Besides, all the critics slammed the film, which is why a lot of film-goers didn’t watch it.”