Box office collections: 'Drishyam 2' eyes Rs 200 crore; 'Bhediya' barely crosses Rs 42 crore in Week 1

A still from Drishyam 2.

Ajay Devgn has had a rollercoaster year at the movies.

His small but significant roles in Gangubai Kathiawadi and RRR resonated with the audiences, and both films crossed the Rs 100-crore mark (RRR [Hindi] ended its theatre run with around Rs 275 crore in the tills). Now it’s his Drishyam 2 - a remake of the Malayalam thriller directed by Jeethu Joseph - which has revived the Hindi box office after two very slow months since Brahmastra.

To be sure, Ajay Devgn has had his share of disappointments in this turbulent time for Bollywood. His Runway 34 was touted to be a biggie but then couldn’t find an audience in theatres. Good reviews and word of mouth came its way too late to make a dent in box office collections, but the film has done well on OTT since. His Diwali release Thank God too didn’t do well in theatres but is expected to recover some ground on satellite TV.

With Drishyam 2 inching towards the 200 Crore Club, it looks like the actor will end the year on a high note. On its third Friday, the film earned more than it had on the previous day - a rare occurrence for big-budget films that have already been doing well, as collections typically drop as the days go by. While Thursday's collections stood at Rs 4.31 crore, Friday brought in Rs 4.45 crore. This, despite the release of new film An Action Hero and last week's release Bhediya in theatres.

So far, Drishyam 2 has collected Rs 167.93 crore.

Meanwhile, An Action Hero had a disappointing start at the box office. The film missed analysts' expectations - which had been set low, given that Drishyam 2 had hurt the opening of Bhediya, too, last week - with only Rs 1.35 crore* coming in. With Ayushmann Khurrana in the lead, there is hope that the movie could pick up some momentum over Saturday and Sunday.

Bhediya has seen a low first week as well, with Rs 42.05 crore coming in. If not for Drishyam 2, the Varun Dhawan-led comedy could have touched the Rs 60 crore mark at least and then aimed for a lifetime of over Rs 80 crore, hence challenging his JugJugg Jeeyo.

As things stand, Bhediya's collections will get impacted by Drishyam 2 again this week but then hopefully there will be some sort of stability next week when there is no notable Bollywood release. The film collected Rs 1.75 crore* on Friday and current collections stand at Rs 43.81 crore*.

*Estimates. Final numbers awaited

Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources