Three days in, and the arithmetic on I'm Game isn't moving in the direction anyone at the studio wants.

Dulquer Salmaan's Malayalam fantasy thriller opened to ₹5.4 crore net in India on 2,727 screens, a reasonable start for a film that was being sold as his big homecoming after 2023's King Of Kotha didn't work. Day 2 brought more shows but less money. Day 3, per Koimoi's tracking, brought a show count bumped up to 3,000 screens and a net collection of ₹4.15 crore, the second straight fall. Three-day net now stands at ₹14.45 crore, which works out to ₹17.05 crore gross in India. Add the overseas number, ₹13.75 crore so far, and I'm Game's worldwide total is ₹30.8 crore.

The trend line is the problem, not the total. A film that adds screens on Day 3 and still earns less than it did on Day 1 is telling you something about word of mouth, and it isn't good news. The opening weekend is expected to close under ₹20 crore, which for a solo release carrying Dulquer's name and a fantasy-thriller premise counts as underwhelming rather than a hit.

Worth remembering here: I'm Game wasn't originally meant to run alone. It was slated for the Onam week, going head to head with Prithviraj Sukumaran's Khalifa, before the makers pulled it back and picked a solo date instead, presumably to avoid exactly this kind of soft opening. The clash-avoidance strategy hasn't translated into the cushion it was supposed to buy.

There's also the matter of who's beating whom in Mollywood right now. Nivin Pauly's Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, in its third weekend, is out-collecting I'm Game on a given day, which is an odd place for a fresh big-ticket release to find itself against a film that's already had its main run.

Director Nahas Hidhayath's last outing, RDX, was the kind of stylised action surprise that ended up grossing ₹84 crore worldwide off modest expectations. I'm Game arrived with the opposite problem, high expectations tied to Dulquer's name and a first pairing with Kayadu Lohar, and the mixed reviews seem to have caught up with it fast. This is also, Dulquer's 40th film, a milestone that was supposed to be a victory lap.

What happens next depends on whether the film can hold through the weekdays, when discounted ticket pricing sometimes rescues a shaky opening weekend. If the daily drop continues at this rate into Monday, the ₹20 crore weekend ceiling starts looking optimistic rather than conservative.