Baby John worldwide box office collection day 1: Varun Dhawan film mints around ₹16 crore

Baby John worldwide box office collection day 1: The film is directed by Kalees & produced by Jawan-fame Atlee. It features Salman Khan in a cameo appearance.

Baby John worldwide box office collection day one: The Varun Dhawan-starrer Baby John was supposed to be a Christmas treat for all his fans, and the film is trying to hold steady at the box office despite tough competition from Allu Arjun’s mega Pushpa 2: The Rule.

Baby John worldwide box office collection day one: The film is a remake of Theri featuring Vijay in the lead role.

The box office game

According to the tracking website Sacnilk, the film registered a business of ₹16.5 crore worldwide. In India, it opened at ₹11.25 crore (net), and ₹13.5 crore (gross).

In India, Baby John had an overall 24.97 per cent occupancy in Hindi on December 25. When it comes to the shows, it was the evening shows which saw more footfalls with 30.89 per cent occupancy. The morning shows saw 13.92 per cent, afternoon shows saw 28.77 per cent, and night shows saw 26.28 per cent.

Baby John is Varun's biggest opening in the past five years. His 2019 release Kalank, which also starred Alia Bhatt, Madhuri Dixit, Sanjay Dutt, Aditya Roy Kapur, and Sonakshi Sinha, earned ₹21.60 crore on its opening day. Varun's last theatrical releases including Street Dancer 3D (2020), Jug Jugg Jeeyo (2022), and Bhediya (2022) didn’t hit the double-digit number on the opening.

The film faces tough competition from Allu Arjun-starrer Pushpa 2, which is in its third week.

About the film

Starring Varun, Keerthy Suresh and Wamiqa Gabbi, the action thriller is directed by Kalees and produced by Jawan-fame Atlee. The film also stars Jackie Shroff, and Rajpal Yadav, with Salman Khan in a cameo appearance. It tells the story of a cop who goes into hiding to bring up his daughter in a safe environment. However, he must face his past when her life is threatened. The film, which is a remake of Theri featuring Vijay in the lead role, was released in theatres on December 25. It opened to mixed response.

According to Hindustan Times' review, the film “starts off on a very choppy note, and there’s no soul for about 40 minutes”. “There’s no sense of direction, and the cute girl bossing around her dad has no effect. Atlee, who has earlier delivered Jawan as a director and Theri as well, is responsible for the story here. The hero playing a double role seems to be his favourite. He did the same with Shah Rukh Khan in Jawan. Oh, another thing he loves is the pigeons. He loves using them to create a flutter, literally. Copy pasted from Jawan here. There's also a social message thrown in for good measure. But it amounts to a mish-mash,” read the review.