Kedarnath box office day 3: Sara Ali Khan film makes ₹27 crore in total, fails to beat Janhvi Kapoor’s Dhadak

Kedarnath showed an upward trend in its opening weekend box office collection, raking in ₹27.75 crore. The Sara Ali Khan and Sushant Singh Rajput-starrer couldn’t match up to Dhadak’s ₹33.6 crore opening.

The first weekend box office collection of debutante Sara Ali Khan’s Kedarnath stands at ₹27.75 crore, missing out on the tally posted by Janhvi Kapoor and Ishaan Khatter’s Dhadak, which ₹33.6 crore in its first three days. Both the star kids made their Bollywood debut in much discussed star vehicles.

Kedarnath’s first weekend box office collection stands at ₹27.75 crore.

A Box Office India report called Kedarnath box office figures ‘decent’. The numbers were impacted by a ban on the film in the state of Uttarakhand, where several protests disrupted the religious-themed film’s release. Box Office India estimates the ban to have made a dent to the tune of ₹30-40 lakhs in the film’s final figures.

The ₹27.75 crore opening also marks Sushant Singh Rajput’s biggest debut since the 2016 biopic, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story. The biopic opened to ₹66 crore in its first three days. Sushant’s third biggest opening came with Shuddh Desi Romance ( ₹23 crore).

Kedarnath opened to mixed reviews from critics, who praised Sara’s performance, but criticised the script. The Hindustan Times review, awarding the film 2 out of 5 stars, called it a ‘wet weepie’. Several critics also unfavourably compared Kedarnath to James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster, Titanic - both films are about star-crossed lovers and set against the backdrop of a real-life disaster.

Directed by Abhishek Kapoor, Kedarnath is based on the 2013 Uttarakhand floods and tells the story of a Muslim pithoo (porter) and a Hindu woman. Sara, the daughter of actors Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh, will quickly transition to her second film, Rohit Shetty’s masala actioner, Simmba, which will release later this month. Simmba stars Ranveer Singh as a tough cop and is being billed as a spin-off to Shetty’s popular Singham films.

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