Maidaan director Amit Sharma recently opened up about the box-failure of the Ajay Devgn starrer sports-drama and said that people can’t be forced to go to theatres to watch a film. The film released earlier in April and clashed at the box-office with Akshay Kumar’s Bade Miyan Chote Miyan.

In an interview with DNA, Amit said, “When the film was released, a lot of people did not watch it. But whoever watched it only praised it. They all appreciated it. I was making rounds of the theatres, and I saw the reaction of the public watching it. It was amazing. After it released on OTT, I was flooded with messages and mails. Many said they should have watched it in theatres, but at the end of the day, you can’t force people to go to theatres.”

He added, “Of course, it comes to your mind as to why numbers are not increasing when the public is appreciating it and the reaction is positive. But I couldn’t find the reason for why the big numbers did not happen.”

According to Sacnilk, the film did a box-office collection of Rs 53 crore.

Maidaan is produced by Zee Studios, Boney Kapoor, Arunava Joy Sengupta, and Akash Chawla, and features Ajay as Coach Syed Abdul Rahim along with Priyamani, Gajraj Rao and Rudranil Ghosh playing pivotal roles.