Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon starrer ‘Raabta’ flopped hard at the Box-office.

Raabta has faced outright rejection on its opening day, collecting less than Rs 5 crore at the domestic box office. The opening is shocking because the occupancy on Friday was on-par with the disastrous ‘Rangoon’ and lower than ‘Ok Jaanu’ which released on fewer screens.

The Day 1 collection is less than half of ‘Half Girlfriend’, even though the release circumstances for ‘Raabta’ was much better than the Mohit Suri directed film. Apart from the ongoing Ramzan period when the muslim section of the audience stay away from theatres (the impact of which is more pronounced at smaller centres), ‘Raabta’ had a cleaner release. ‘Bahubali 2’ is now running at lower levels and the other release this week ‘Behen Hogi Teri’ isn’t carrying the kind of word-of-mouth that ‘Hindi Medium’ did.

Recovering the marketing costs from theatrical business will now be a struggle for ‘Raabta’ because the film is unlikely to collect more than 17-18 crore in its first weekend. The reports aren’t positive either, so it remains to be seen where the film goes from here.

‘Raabta’ is a major setback for Sushant Singh Rajput, who had significantly hiked his acting-fee after the success of ‘MS Dhoni: The Untold Story’. Even his smaller films like ‘Shuddh Desi Romance’ and inflation-adjusted opening of ‘Kai Po Che’ and ‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshi’ was better than a more expensive and commercial film like ‘Raabta’.

Meanwhile, Sushant Singh Rajput while promoting for Raabta, spoke about his work and career. When asked about his ‘arrogant’ image, Sushant said, “After ‘M S Dhoni…’ people started saying I turned arrogant but people see things the way they want to. I am not bothered by what others feel about me… I know how I am and how I want to be.”
“I take the responsibility of everything I do. If I am asked some question I will say what I feel, not what somebody else wants to listen. I am not a people pleaser. I will not endorse a popular opinion just for the sake of getting an acknowledgement. I will be extremely confident in putting forward my version of things,” Sushant added.