BACHCHHAN PAANDEY collected 12.25-12.50 crore nett on day one which is pretty good considering the situation with THE KASHMIR FILES running riot at the box office and the collection is far higher than the film looked like getting before release.

The film should have got up to 13 crore nett but it lost around 50-60 lakhs nett business in Bihar and CP Berar as many of the single screens were shut due to Holi. Bihar will be shut on Saturday also and will open on Sunday. The collections in Bihar were only 15-20 lakhs when they should have been double. CP Berar also was only 35 lakhs nett which is half of the Rajasthan number when it should be same.

The standout was Gujarat Saurashtra which collected 2-2.25 crore nett which gave Mumbai circuit a very good number of 4.75 crore nett. Rajasthan, CI and UP also fared well. The film has somehow got to this first day number probably due to the star presence of Akshay Kumar but it is still facing that huge headwind of THE KASHMIR FILES which is going to get stronger and stronger over the weekend as the advances were insane for Saturday and Sunday.

This makes it a huge uphill battle for BACHCHHAN PAANDEY as that film will be taking at least 20 crore nett and maybe even 25 crore nett or even more out of the market making it very tough for the Akshay Kumar starrer to go anywhere. If the reports of a film are great, then maybe you have a chance of fighting this wave but here BACHCHHAN PAANDEY has fair reports and that too mainly for Hindi circuits where the other film is a hurricane.