Vivek Agnihotri’s latest political drama, The Bengal Files, has outperformed his 2019 film The Tashkent Files at the box office but still lags significantly behind the phenomenal success of The Kashmir Files (2022).
Modest Opening Weekend for The Bengal Files
The Bengal Files earned ₹2.75 crore on Sunday, following ₹2.15 crore on Saturday and ₹1.75 crore on Friday. According to Sacnilk, the film’s total opening weekend collection in India stands at ₹6.65 crore. While this is nearly three times the ₹2.20 crore that The Tashkent Files earned during its opening weekend, it is only about one-fourth of the ₹27.15 crore that The Kashmir Files raked in.
Comparing Agnihotri’s Political Trilogy
The Tashkent Files, a pre-pandemic outing on the death of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri under mysterious circumstances, featured Mithun Chakraborty, Naseeruddin Shah, and Pankaj Tripathi. At the other end, The Kashmir Files, based on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, was a box office hit, with a ₹3.55 crore opening and rising to ₹15 crore by day three.
Comparatively, The Bengal Files also had a subdued beginning despite the impressive cast that boasts of Mithun Chakraborty, Namashi Chakraborty, Anupam Kher, and Pallavi Joshi. The movie deals with the Direct Action Day of 1946, Noakhali Massacre, and the “Great Bengal Killing” and compares them to contemporary problems in Bengal and Bangladesh.
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Heavy Investment and Stiff Competition
Agnihotri has disclosed that he invested the returns of The Kashmir Files into The Bengal Files, in addition to borrowed money. In the meantime, his last release, The Vaccine War, launched on ₹3.50 crore and concluded on ₹10.33 crore.
The movie also encountered stiff competition this weekend from Baaghi 4 featuring Tiger Shroff and Sanjay Dutt, which debuted at a record ₹31.25 crore.