‘Shehzada’ Falls Short Of $4 Million In A Week

Kartik Aaryan’s latest outing – Shehzada – proved to be a box office dud after a dull start and has earned mere $3.2 million in one week of the release. It is an official Hindi remake of the 2020 Telugu film Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo that featured Allu Arjun in the lead role.

The new film is directed by Rohit Dhawan, and features Kriti Sanon opposite Aaryan. Manisha Koirala plays his real mom in the Hindi film while Paresh Rawal, and Ronit Roy play his two fathers. One of them is the biological father while the other one brought him up. While Tabu essayed Koirala’s role (of the biological mom) in the original, Sachin Khedekar plays the role of the patriarch in the rich family in both films. Bhushan Kumar has produced Shehzada under his T Series banner and Allu Arvind (Allu Entertainment) and Aman Gill (Brat Films) have also co-produced the film. The Hindi film also marks the debut of Aaryan as a producer.

The film traces the story of a man (Aaryan for Hindi, Allu Arjun for Telugu) who struggles to get one complement from his middle-class father (Rawal for Hindi, Murali Sharma for Telugu). Soon, the man realises that he is the heir to a huge business family in town but decided against claiming the wealth. Nonetheless, he rises up to the ocassion and plays the typical son to ensure his “real family” stays together. Jayaram plays the biological father of Allu Arjun in the film while Ronit essays the role in the Hindi film.

Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo was not a critically acclaimed film, but it did work well for the audience. Several parts in Shehzada have been copied frame-to-frame, but the Hindi film also takes a few major deviations from the original. Unfortunately, some of the hilarious parts of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo have been skipped in that attempt.

Initially set for a February 10 release, Shehzada was shifted a week later. The development came close on the heels of the major box office success that Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan registered at the ticket windows across the globe. The producers of Shehzada had announced that their film would release on February 17 instead of February 10, “in respect” of the success of Pathaan.

Pathaan has recorded more than $120 million worldwide gross collection in a month of the intial release on January 25. The film featured Khan in a spy’s role while Dimple Kapadia, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham also featured in it.

Meanwhile, another Hindi remake of a south Indian film – Selfiee (a remake of the Malayalam original film Driving License) has failed to attract audiences. The Akshay Kumar film has made mere $500,000 opening collection.