Headlined by newcomers Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, Saiyaara is proving to be a tour de force at the box office. In its opening weekend itself, the Mohit Suri musical has minted Rs 83 crore, as per industry tracker Sacnilk. com, surpassing the first weekend collections of star vehicles like Aamir Khan’s Sitaare Zameen Par (Rs 58.15 crore), Ajay Devgn’s Raid 2 (Rs 71.25 crore) and Salman Khan’s Sikandar (Rs 74.5 crore).
The romantic-drama has already made its space in the top ten Hindi grossers of the year.
Saiyaara opened with Rs 21 crore, which increased to Rs 25 crore on Saturday. On Sunday, the film’s collections experienced a 48% jump to Rs 37 crore, taking its total collections to Rs 83 crore.
The film recorded an overall 71.18% Hindi occupancy on Sunday, with peak turnout during the evening shows (88.15%), followed by the night (78.53%) and afternoon (78.53%) shows — showing consistent occupancy throughout the day.
The film also recorded the highest number of screenings — 1,120 shows — in the Delhi-NCR region, which also reported the highest occupancy. Delhi was closely followed by other major cities like Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad in terms of high turnout.
Saiyaara has achieved these numbers without its lead pair doing any promotions. Mohit claimed that like his 2013 romantic drama Aashiqui 2, starring Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor, he wanted to keep the pairing of Ahaan and Aneet fresh till the film’s release. While Aditya and Shraddha had appeared in a few films prior to Aashiqui 2, Saiyaara marks Ahaan’s screen debut and Aneet’s film debut. Aneet was previously seen in the coming-of-age show Big Girls Don’t Cry last year.
“It was an idea that collectively came forward. My producer Akshaye Widhani and, of course, Aditya Chopra (owner of Yash Raj Films), who has mentored us through this thing, suggested that until the two actors don’t have anything behind them to talk about, the conversation will be filled with questions like ‘Who is the prankster on the set?’ or ‘How is it to work with Mohit Suri?’ It’s all redundant stuff, and I don’t think anyone has any interest in listening to all that,” Mohit said in an interview on the YouTube channel Just Too Filmy.
With Ajay Devgn’s Son of Sardaar 2 shifting its release to August 1 from July 25, Saiyaara will have a free-run at the box office for two more weeks.
Our review of the film read: “Earlier this month, director Anurag Basu gave his take on modern love and relationships with Metro…In Dino. Suri’s Saiyaara might have nothing new to say but what is alluring is that it bears the director’s authentic voice. The music, however, works better in the film, than it does on a jukebox. If you are a middle-aged millennial, vexed with Hindi cinema not coming up with anything fresh, Saiyaara will give you respite by taking you to the good old days.”