2019 opened on an unapologetic note with two major releases, ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’ and ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’. While the former covered the historic surgical strikes in the wake of the dastardly Uri attacks of September 2016, the latter, and the much more controversial film was based on Sanjaya Baru’s book of the same name, and covered the tumultuous tenure of Dr. Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister of UPA from 2004-2014.
Right from the moment the trailer was released; ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ was under heavy fire from the left liberals, who forgot their own stance during ‘Padmaavat’ as they heckled the movie left, right and center. From issuing threats of vandalizing theaters, to mocking the crew for daring to take the names of every politician involved, to even YouTube shadow banning the trailer when its popularity grew by leaps and bounds, The Accidental Prime Minister has seen it all.
This wasn’t all. When the film released yesterday, all hell broke loose. Most of the left liberal critics gave pre meditated reviews, ranging from 0 to 2.5 stars, while politicians and left liberal intellectuals pronounced their verdict even without watching the movie.
To make matters worse, Congress appointed goons, with silent support from the ruling TMC government, vandalized theater in Bengal that showed ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’. Shows were disrupted midway and replaced with Simmba, multiplexes were raided by Congress ‘workers’, and even the screens in the movie halls were torn, so that the movie couldn’t be shown to the masses.
However, if we look at the box office collections of the movie, the audience has sent a simple but hard message to such hate mongers: ‘To blazes with your propaganda!’ Despite facing stiff competition from ‘Uri’ and the Rohit Shetty starrer ‘Simmba’, ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ not only earned decent revenue, but is also showing signs of becoming another sleeper hit like ‘Parmanu’.
Film trade analyst Taran Adarsh has given an extremely delightful picture about the box office collections The Accidental Prime Minister as he posted the following tweets:
#TheAccidentalPrimeMinister picked up from evening shows onwards… Records decent numbers on Day 1… Fri ₹ 4.50 cr. India biz. #TAPM
— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) January 12, 2019
According to the tweet, despite the liberal bashing and the heckling of Congress goons in Bengal, The Accidental Prime Minister earned a respectable total of Rs. 4.50 crores on the same day at the box office.
This has come after The Accidental Prime Minister was heckled and abused by left-liberal critics, ranging from NDTV to Film Companion to even the notorious left liberal mouthpiece The Wire. While Uri just received negative reviews, The Accidental Prime Minister had it way worse, with shows disrupted midway, screens torn and theatres vandalized by Congress goons throughout the state of Bengal.
To add insult to injury, everybody, from the critics to even politicians, abused the movie, with Omar Abdullah, Prashant Bhushan, Mamata Bannerjee etc. not only abusing the movie crew but also mocking the BJP, challenging the makers if they could make one on PM Modi in the same way. Going by the box office collections, it seems that the audience have given the entire left liberal intelligentsia a tight slap for their vicious propaganda, and determined to make both the movies box office hits.
The film, which despite the controversy and vandalism earned a total of Rs. 4.5 crores, has earned approximately Rs. 3-4 crores on the 2nd day, taking the total to approximately Rs. 9 crores. The exact numbers are still awaited. Since the overall budget of this movie is Rs. 30 crores, the film is expected to turn out as a box office success, should the revenue be steady for the entire week.
Besides, to give a picture of how popular The Accidental Prime Minister has emerged out, sample research of tickets being booked on websites like Book My Show brings out that out of 10 shows on an average, The Accidental Prime Minister is having occupancy of more than 75% for approximately 7 of them. Long story short, The Accidental Prime Minister is running with mostly packed shows, and it is unlikely, that the revenue will drop anytime soon.
Moreover, the following week has no big competition, despite the release of ‘Why Cheat India’, ‘Fraud Saiyaan’ etc., so both ‘Uri’ and ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ have a golden chance to strike big at the box office, before ‘Manikarnika’ and ‘Thackeray’ take over on 25th January.
