Chandu Champion box office collection day 1: Kabir Khan's sports drama starring Kartik Aaryan in the titular role has been getting mostly rave reviews. However, it opened only at ₹3.97 crore on Friday at the domestic box office, as per early estimates reported by Sacnilk. 

Chandu Champion box office day 1

Less than ₹4 crore is Kartik's lowest opening not only post pandemic, but in the last eight years. His last film that opened at less than that was Ashwini Dhir's 2017 comedy Guest Iin London. This was a year before Kartik broke out with Luv Ranjan's buddy comedy Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety in 2018, which opened at ₹6.42 crore. Then came Laxman Utekar's 2019 romantic comedy Luka Chuppi ( ₹8.01 crore) and Mudassar Aziz's rom-com Pati Patni Aur Woh ( ₹9.10 crore). Even Imtiaz Ali's much-panned 2020 romantic drama Love Aaj Kal opened higher than all of these at ₹12 crore.

One would argue that pre-pandemic was a different story. But even post pandemic, Kartik's films have performed exceptionally. While Ram Madhvani's 2021 newsroom thriller Dhamaka and Shashanka Ghosh's 2022 psychological thriller Freddy were direct-to-digital releases, Kartik revived Hindi film industry's box office with Anees Bazmee's 2022 horror comedy Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, which opened at ₹14.11 crore. Even Rohit Dhawan's 2023 action film Shehzada, which tanked at the box office, opened decently at ₹6 crore. Kartik's last film, Sameer Vidwans' 2023 romantic drama Satyaprem Ki Katha scored ₹8.25 crore on its opening day.

About Chandu Champion

Directed by Kabir Khan and jointly produced by Sajid Nadiadwala and Kabir Khan, Chandu Champion tells the inspiring tale of a determined athlete. Kartik Aaryan portrays Chandu in this film, which is based on the life of Murlikant Petkar, India's first Paralympic gold medalist in freestyle swimming. It also stars Shreyas Talpade, Rajpal Yadav, and Vijay Raaz among others. Kabir's last film, 83, underperformed at the box office, thanks to the omicron Covid wave in 2021. It was headlined by Ranveer Singh.

Read Also: kannappa teaser: fans thrilled to catch a glimpse of akshay kumar, prabhas, mohanlal in vishnu manchu-starrer