Kalank Box Office: Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan’s Film Will Find It Difficult to Make Itself Profitable – Here’s Why

Kalank was expected to be a movie that would break records at the box office. Trade experts had predicted the film to be the highest grossing film in the careers of the lead actors involved and a minimum Rs 200 crore guaranteed business. After all, it was produced by the man with the golden touch, Karan Johar, and had an ensemble cast in the lead. Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt were having a fine run at the box office, and the presence of Madhuri Dixit Nene, Sanjay Dutt, Aditya Roy Kapur and Sonakshi Sinha also enhanced Kalank's commercial viability. Kalank Box Office Collection Day 2: Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt's Love Saga Holds Up Well on Thursday, Rakes in Rs 33.05 Crore.

Kalank's release date was affixed on a Wednesday, April 17, which also happened to be Mahavir Jayanthi. With April 19 being Good Friday, there was a high chance for the movie to not only make more than Rs 100 crore within little time but also enjoy the nearly competition-less extended first weekend.

Truth is, however, a lot far from expectations. Kalank did go on to get the record of being the highest opening day grosser of 2019, beating Akshay Kumar's Kesari, with Rs 21.6 crore. However, the second-day collections took a huge dip with the movie earning about Rs 11 crore, making the total collections to be Rs 33.05 crore.

Now, this should not be worrying in usual cases, since Thursday was a working day. However, the percentage of the drop was about 46.99% which is alarming since it was worse than Kesari and Gully Boy, as per trade analyst Taran Adarsh.

But April 19 happened to be a holiday, so the collections are bound to rise again, right? Here's where our concerns about the movie's collections see high spikes. Kalank has got some of the worst reviews for a Dharma movie in recent times, and the word-of-mouth on the film is also very low. Kalank: The IMDB Score of Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt’s Film Is LOWER Than Salman Khan’s Race 3 and Aamir Khan’s Thugs of Hindostan!

It isn't that the critically reviled films have never worked at the box office. But going by the current flavour among the audiences, it either has to be a nationalistic movie like Uri: The Surgical Strike or Kesari or a light-hearted entertainer like Luka Chuppi.

Kalank, on the other hand, is a serious romantic drama whose running time of 168 minutes goes against the film's favour. Even though, Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan have a huge fan-base, that isn't just enough to draw in the audiences when there is so much negativity about the product. Just see what happened to Shah Rukh Khan's romantic drama Zero, after garnering an average response from the critics.

There is also the fact that director Abhishek Varman had mounted Kalank on a lavish scale, which has also scaled up the budget of the film. As per Taran Adarsh, the film costs about Rs 150 crore (CoP + P&A), which mean that it has to earn more than Rs 180 crore to be deemed profitable. Which, going by the general buzz about the film, feels highly impossible.

Then again, we are in the third day run of the film, so it is too soon to say anything on this. Friday collections of Kalank are really important for us to determine if the audience is in any mood to accept the film in the days ahead. After all, it is a public holiday. If the collections don't show major improvement, then it is difficult to sustain ahead with Avengers: EndGame releasing on April 26. So are we looking at Dharma Productions's first big misfire in years? Going by the reports around, perhaps, and sadly, yes!

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 19, 2019 05:01 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).