The fourth collaboration between Nandamuri Balakrishna and director Boyapati Srinu, Akhanda 2, was released on December 12. In contrast, their previous films — Simha, Legend, and Akhanda — were all major box-office successes. However, Akhanda 2, which is a sequel to the earlier Akhanda, has performed poorly at the box office when compared to those films.
Mounted on a budget of over ₹200 crore, the film has managed to collect only ₹84.85 crore net in India in its first ten days, according to a report from Sacnilk.com.
Despite extensive promotions in the Hindi belt before and after the release, the film failed to find an audience there. The response in Kerala has also been negligible. Karnataka remains the only territory where the film showed some strength, collecting around ₹10.65 crore in ten days. In the rest of India, the film earned approximately ₹2.63 crore.
Trade circles believe the film needed to collect at least ₹150 crore net to put distributors in a safe zone. With the current trend, distributors in several areas are likely to incur losses of up to 50 percent. The overseas collections, too, have been below expectations.
Given these figures, trade analysts say reaching the break-even mark looks highly unlikely, and the film is largely being reported as a boxoffice failure. Adding to its woes, nearly half a dozen small films are set to release on December 25, which will further reduce screen availability.
