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'Sarfira', starring Akshay Kumar in the lead, was released in theatres on July 12. It is the Hindi remake of the National Award-winning 2020 Tamil film 'Soorarai Pottru', that starred Suriya. 'Sarfira' is directed by Sudha Kongara, who also helmed the original, based on the life of Capt Gopinath, who founded India’s first low-cost airline. 'Sarfira' received mostly positive reviews from critics and audiences and performances by the cast are also raved. However, it failed to impress with box office numbers. According to industry tracker Sacnilk, 'Sarfira' collected only Rs 2.40 crore nett on its opening day.
The same portal also stated that 'Sarfira' had an overall 13.08% Hindi occupancy on Friday. Night shows witnessed the highest occupancy of 20.24%, evening shows saw only 13.72%, afternoon shows saw an occupancy of 11.34% and morning shows saw an attendance of only 7.03%
Since the last couple of years, Akshay Kumar's films have not been performing well at the box office. Since 2021, he has not delivered a single blockbuster. Big-budget films like 'Bachchhan Paandey', 'Samrat Prithviraj', 'Rakshabandhan', 'Ram Setu', and 'Selfiee' among others were box office duds.
As per Bollywood Hungama’s data, with 'Sarfira', Akshay Kumar has delivered his lowest box office debut since his 2009 film '8X10 Tasveer', which earned Rs 1.8 crore on day 1. 'Mission Raniganj’ pocketed Rs 2.8 crore on day 1, 'Selfiee’ made Rs 2.5 crore and 'Bell Bottom' opened to Rs 2.7 crore. His biggest flops- 'Bachchhan Paandey' and 'Ram Setu' debuted with Rs 13 crore and Rs 15 crore.
'Sarfira' is facing a tough competition with Kamal Haasan starrer 'Indian 2'. As per a report in Sacnilk, the action drama amassed Rs 26 crore net at the India box office on day 1 for all languages. The Tamil version earned over Rs 17 crore, followed by the Hindi and Telugu versions, that contributed Rs 1.1 crore and Rs 7.9 crore, respectively. 'Indian 2' is the sequel to the 1996 film 'Indian', directed by Shankar. The sequel is helmed by the same director. Kamal Haasan has reprised his role of Senapathy. The film failed to impress a larger number of audiences.
