The Priyadarshan thriller, budgeted between Rs 100 and 115 crore per trade reports, has crashed to double-digit lakh collections by its first Wednesday.
Six days in, and Haiwaan has nothing left to defend. The Akshay Kumar-Saif Ali Khan crime thriller, directed by Priyadarshan, has slid to its lowest single-day number yet, with trackers disagreeing only on how bad the damage actually is.
Koimoi puts the day six India gross at Rs 65 lakh, pushing the film's total domestic haul to Rs 10.98 crore and its worldwide gross to Rs 14.23 crore. The Times of India has it lower still, Rs 55 lakh on Wednesday and a six-day India net of Rs 9.30 crore, with the worldwide gross at Rs 14.36 crore. Either way, the story is the same. A film that needed a big opening weekend to justify its budget never got one, and now it's bleeding out in slow motion.
The Times of India reports the film was mounted on a budget of Rs 100 to 115 crore. Set that against a worldwide total that both trackers agree won't cross Rs 18 crore, and you have what Koimoi calls a shocker for Akshay Kumar and Priyadarshan, a pairing that goes back decades.
A cast that couldn't save it
Haiwaan came in with real firepower on paper. Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan lead, with Boman Irani, Shriya Pilgaonkar and Saiyami Kher in supporting roles, and a Mohanlal cameo thrown in for good measure. None of it moved the needle. Buzz was thin going in, per Koimoi, and the film never recovered from a soft opening. The weekend numbers effectively decided its fate, and everything since has been about limiting the bleeding rather than chasing a turnaround.
Internationally, Koimoi says the film's run wraps up on Wednesday itself, its overseas numbers too small to justify holding shows any longer. In India, it might hang on into a second week, but only just. A clutch of new releases hits theatres Thursday, and Haiwaan is expected to lose whatever screens it still has to them. Koimoi's projection has the lifetime worldwide gross settling below Rs 18 crore, a number that would rank among the year's bigger disasters for a film with two lead stars this size.
Haiwaan is produced by Venkat K Narayana and Shailaja Desai Fenn under KVN Productions and Thespian Films. Neither the production banners nor the film's stars have commented publicly on the collapse. The immediate question now is whether exhibitors pull the plug entirely by the weekend, or let it limp through a token second week before the next Friday's releases finish the job.
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