Acclaimed director Imtiaz Ali has made his highly anticipated return to the big screen with his latest romantic partition-era drama titled Main Vaapas Aaunga. While the deeply emotional movie has managed to garner overwhelmingly positive reviews from film critics and viewers alike, its initial performance at the domestic box office has turned out to be remarkably quiet. According to early trade tracking reports, the film had a very slow start on its opening day, managing an initial single-day net collection of just 1.15 crore across India. Despite extensive promotional activities by the star cast across major platforms, the movie struggled to establish a high momentum at the ticket windows, officially recording one of the slowest opening days for an Imtiaz Ali directorial venture in recent history.
The low opening numbers look especially disappointing when contrasted directly against the first-day performance of his previous romantic release, Love Aaj Kal 2. That 2020 film, which featured Kartik Aaryan and Sara Ali Khan in central leading roles, had managed to secure a massive opening day haul of 12.40 crore net and eighteen crore gross in India despite eventually receiving mixed reviews from the audience. In comparison, Main Vaapas Aaunga has failed to beat that benchmark by a huge margin, bringing in less than ten percent of what the filmmaker’s previous project collected on its respective first Friday. Trade data indicates that the new release also trails far behind other major Imtiaz Ali titles like Jab Harry Met Sejal which opened at 15.25 crore, Tamasha which debuted with 10.95 crore, and his cult musical hit Rockstar which collected 10.6 crore on day one.
Trade tracking reports reveal that Main Vaapas Aaunga was distributed across 2,302 shows nationwide on Friday, maintaining a modest overall seating occupancy of 12.22 percent throughout the opening day. The cinematic project witnessed a highly sluggish start during morning screenings with a seating occupancy of just 5.92 percent, before picking up minor momentum in afternoon and evening shows with occupancies hovering around ten percent. The highest attendance was recorded during late-night screenings, which managed to peak at 18.23 percent as urban moviegoers began trickling into multiplexes. Geographically, the National Capital Region led the show counts with 308 screenings and a thirteen percent occupancy, followed closely by Mumbai with 235 shows and an eleven percent occupancy. However, the film’s total domestic gross collection stood at a quiet 1.38 crore, heavily slowed down by an intense nine-film box office clash that forced it to split screens with Kangana Ranaut’s Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata, Manoj Bajpayee’s Governor, and Vikram Bhatt’s horror sequel Haunted 3D.
From a narrative standpoint, Main Vaapas Aaunga has earned deep praise for its visual beauty, sincere emotional core, and soul-stirring musical score composed by the legendary A.R. Rahman alongside lyricist Irshad Kamil. Co-written by Imtiaz Ali and Nayanika Mahtani under the production banners of Window Seat Films and Applause Entertainment, the gripping drama takes a unique dive into a multi-generational tale of love and separation. The plot centers around a ninety-five-year-old man suffering from dementia who attempts to travel back to Pakistan, prompting his devoted grandson to piece together fragments of a beautiful, unfulfilled pre-partition romance that has lingered for decades. While superstars Diljit Dosanjh, Sharvari, Vedang Raina, and veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah deliver stellar performances that have resonated with content-driven cinema lovers, trade analysts suggest the film faces an uphill task and will urgently require an extraordinary, unprecedented jump in ticket sales over the weekend to establish a steady hold at the multiplexes.
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