Meghna Gulzar's crime thriller with Kareena Kapoor Khan and Prithviraj Sukumaran failed to see any Sunday jump, even as rival release Vibe pulled ahead over the same weekend.
Daayra isn't finding its audience, at least not yet. The Meghna Gulzar-directed crime thriller, starring Kareena Kapoor Khan and Prithviraj Sukumaran, collected an estimated ₹1.75 crore net in India on Day 3, according to Sacnilk. That's identical to what it made on Day 2. No Sunday spike, no correction, nothing.
The film opened on September 18, the same Friday as Kunal Khemu's Vibe, and three days in, its India net total sits at roughly ₹4.50 crore, with the gross figure at ₹5.40 crore. Across 1,839 shows on Day 3 alone, that's a thin average per screen, and it tells you distributors haven't exactly been fighting for print space either.
Context makes the numbers sting more. Reports have pegged Daayra's budget at around ₹55 crore, though the makers haven't confirmed that figure, so treat it as an estimate floating around trade circles rather than gospel. If it's anywhere close to accurate, the film has a long way to climb before recovery talk makes sense.
A rival pulling ahead
Vibe, releasing the same day, has had a noticeably different trajectory, reportedly climbing to ₹2.70 crore on Saturday and eyeing a weekend closer to ₹7.50 crore. Two very different curves from the same Friday, which is going to invite comparisons whether the makers of either film want them or not.
The reviews haven't been the problem. The Free Press Journal's own critic gave Daayra 3.5 stars out of 5, calling it "undoubtedly one of the best works of Meghna Gulzar" and praising how the film "stays in its 'daayra', never goes overboard" while handling its subject with restraint. That's a solid notice for a director whose name usually carries weight. It just hasn't translated into footfalls.
Online chatter has picked up on the mismatch too. Kareena Kapoor Khan posted about the film on her own page over the weekend, and fans elsewhere have been asking, bluntly, why a film with this cast and this director isn't pulling numbers. Some are already calling the opening weekend a disappointment nobody, including Kapoor Khan herself, seems to have anticipated.
What happens next depends on Monday, always the real test for a film that's struggled to build weekend momentum. A flat Sunday after a flat Saturday isn't a good sign heading into the weekday drop that usually follows. If Daayra can't hold even a fraction of its opening numbers through the week, the ₹55 crore conversation becomes academic fast, and the story shifts from box office to what went wrong.
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