Devgn's Action Jackson fails to set box office on fire

Prabhudeva directed film, which released on Dec 5, raked in around Rs 25 cr opening weekend

Ajay Devgn’s latest flick Action Jackson has failed to click with the movie goers. The Prabhudeva directed film, which released on December 5, raked in around Rs 25 crore in the opening weekend. This is a far cry from Devgn’s Independence Day release Singham Returns, which collected Rs 32 crore on its opening day.

Action Jackson stars Sonakshi Sinha, Yami Gautam and Kunaal Roy Kapoor along with Devgn and is co-produced by Baba Film and Eros International. Distributed worldwide by Eros, the film is made on a budget of Rs 75 crore. Considering the scale of the movie’s cost, the collections indicate that the producers will struggle to recover costs, let alone make profits.

“It earned Rs 19 crore in two days. It was made on a budget of about Rs 75 crore and considering that, the film should’ve done better. Those who like Prabhudeva kind of films have mostly gone for it, but not everyone,” Rajesh Thadani of Multimedia Combines told IANS.

Prabhudeva, who has directed five Bollywood films till date, is not new to ups and downs at the box office. He debuted as a Bollywood director in 2009 with Salman Khan-Ayesha Takia starrer Wanted. The film was a remake of a Telugu film Pokiri, starring Mahesh Babu and Illeana D'Cruz.

Wanted went on to enter the Rs 100 crore club and was one of the highest grossers of the year. The dancer-director followed up his debut stint with Akshay Kumar-Sonakshi Sinha’s Rowdy Rathore, which also went on to do more than Rs 100 crore business at the domestic box office.

The collections dried up for his next venture Ramaiya Vastavaiya, which di average business at the box office. However, the audiences flocked back to the cinema halls to watch R…Rajkumar which has Shahid Kapoor and Sonakshi8 Sinha in the lead. The film collected Rs 65 crore at the domestic box office, and was declared a semi-hit.

The fate of Action Jackson will depend on the word of mouth, but prospects for the film look bleak. “With the cost being so high, it is safe to say that the film will lose money. The film has just not clicked with the audiences and the word of mouth is not too good,” say analysts.

At Rs 75 crore, the film has to do a business of at least Rs 155 (after taxes) crore at the domestic box office for the producers to recover the money. Considering the trend in Bollywood is that the first weekend, especially in case of the big movies, is the highest collecting weekend, Action Jakcson may be looking at a dismal fate at the box office.