War 2 vs Coolie: Rajinikanth starter wins as Hrithik Roshan and NTR Jr’s film loses steam

Following the second weekend of their release, War 2 saw a muted performance at the box office. The movie added only 16.75 crore in the course of three days, reaching ₹ 214.50 crore in India net collections, according to data from Sacnilk.

A major reason that War 2 has been unable to keep up with the expectations of garnering as much as ₹400 crore, is because the film has not managed to bring Hindi and Tamil audiences to the movieplexes.

For the second Friday and Saturday, the film managed to take in only ₹8.75 crore for its Hindi version. Additionally, the Telugu hype that was initially buoying the film, also seems to have fizzled out. Telugu version of the film has also been subpar during the same days with just ₹1.35 crore contribution to the total collection, despite a massive NTR hype.

As of Sunday, net India collections as per early estimates of Sacnilk remain at just ₹6.50 crore.

Further, War 2 saw an overall Hindi occupancy of just 20.65% across theatres. Morning shows saw a modest 9.63% occupancy, which picked up significantly to 24.14% in the afternoon. The evening shows recorded the highest turnout at 31.26%, before dropping to 17.55% for the night screenings.

Across cities, Chennai at 46.5%, and Bengaluru at 35% have seen the highest occupancy levels with cities in the north contributing much less to the overall occupancy levels.

Meanwhile Coolie has managed to garner ₹246 crore so far, with the second weekend adding a much better ₹27.1 crore, according to Sacnilk.

This is also slightly below the expectations with a Rajnikanth starrer, even though the film has performed considerably better than its theatrical-release-date competitor.

During Friday and Saturday, the film saw its original Tamil version garnering ₹9.75 crore, followed by Hindi version at ₹3.50 crore. Telugu amassed a small ₹2.85 crore with Kannada version adding a much smaller contribution of ₹25 lakh.

On Sunday, the film, as per Sacnilk’s early estimates, had garnered ₹10.75 crore.

As of Sunday, Coolie comparatively maintained a strong hold at the box office with an overall Tamil occupancy of 38.07%. The film saw 24.14% occupancy in morning shows, jumping sharply to 45.18% in the afternoon. The peak came during the evening shows with an impressive 52.97% turnout, before easing to 29.97% at night.

Across southern cities occupancy levels have remained above 40%, according to the data.

The question however, is no longer who will win instead will both of these films survive the coming weekend amid new launches such as Maddock Films’ Param Sundari?