Emergency box office collection day 1: Kangana Ranaut‘s long-delayed maiden solo directorial hit cinemas this Friday. As per Sack, the film opened low, yet managed to secure Kangana her biggest opening in five years, post pandemic. (Also Read: Is R Madhavan doing Tanu Weds Manu 3? Actor breaks silence)
Emergency’s opening
Emergency opened to ₹2.35 crore on Friday. In comparison to Kangana’s solo releases in the past five years, the film’s opening ranks at the top. Kangana’s previous film, Sarvesh Mewara’s 2023 aerial action entertainer Tejas, earned ₹1.25 crore on the opening day at the domestic box office. Her 2022 action film, Dhaakad, helmed by Razneesh Ghai, earned ₹1.20 crore on day 1 at the box office.
Prior to that, another political biopic – AL Vijay’s Thalaivii (2021) – based on the life of late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, earned ₹1.46 crore on the opening day across the three languages it was released in – Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi. Her biggest opening before Emergency was back in January 2020, before the pandemic shut down cinemas. Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s sports drama Panga opened to ₹2.70 crore.
About Emergency
The political drama, which sees Ranaut playing the role of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, focuses on 21 months of Emergency from 1975 to 1977. Emergency, in controversy over its censor certificate and allegations that it misrepresents the Sikh community, was released across the country on Friday after several delays.
In August last year, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee’s (SGPC) sent a legal notice to the film’s producers, alleging that it “misrepresented” the character and history of Sikhs, and asked them to remove objectionable scenes depicting “anti-Sikh” sentiments.
On Thursday, SGPC chief Harjinder Singh Dhami wrote to Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann demanding a ban on the movie, which released across the country on Friday. Many cinemas in Ludhiana, Amritsar, Patiala and Bathinda did not screen Emergency after members of the SGPC protested against the movie. Police force was deployed outside the malls and cinemas in the state.
Kangana on Friday said the SGPC’s demand for a ban on Emergency and the film’s restricted screenings in parts of Punjab is a complete harassment of “art and the artist.”
