Two big names weren't enough. Haiwaan, the Priyadarshan directorial pairing Saif Ali Khan and Akshay Kumar for the first time, opened to somewhere between Rs 2.75 crore and Rs 3.25 crore on Friday, according to early estimates reported by Bollywood Hungama. National chains alone are said to have managed around Rs 1.90 crore for the day.

That's not a slow start. That's a film nobody showed up for.

Bollywood Hungama's report calls it close to a no-show across the board, with whatever footfall did turn up largely riding on the two leads' face value rather than any pull from the film itself. The trade outlet notes the trailers had already signalled trouble, but adds that even the most pessimistic projections didn't see this coming.

What makes the number sting is the company it now keeps. Bollywood Hungama places this opening in the same bracket as Akshay Kumar's own Selfiee and Sarfira, neither of which are remembered fondly at the box office. For a film carrying two established stars and, per the report, a hefty budget, landing among the year's lowest openers is about as bad as first-day numbers get.

There was reason to expect better. Haiwaan marked Akshay Kumar's reunion with Priyadarshan after Bhooth Bangla worked for the pair, and pairing him with Saif for the first time should have generated some curiosity on its own. Instead, the trailers apparently did the opposite of their job, and Friday's numbers suggest audiences had already made up their minds before the ticket counters opened.

Online chatter around the release has matched the mood of the numbers, with plenty of discussion around the film's censor cuts and its U/A 16+ certification from the CBFC, but not much of it translating into actual excitement for the film itself.

Bollywood Hungama's own assessment is blunt: whatever happens over the weekend, it's curtains down on Haiwaan's theatrical run in any meaningful sense. The report does leave room for some uptick on Saturday and Sunday, the way weekend crowds sometimes nudge a film's numbers upward regardless of a rough Friday. But a jump big enough to change the conversation looks unlikely given how steep the opening-day gap already is.

The next checkpoint is simple. Does the film show any real growth over Saturday and Sunday, or does it settle into the kind of week-one fade that's already priced in? Either way, for a film built around two of Hindi cinema's more bankable names, this was not the opening anyone in the trade was banking on.