Inside The Box: Liger Lost Its Money To Banal Storytelling

Director Puri Jagannadh's Liger, starring Vijay Deverakonda and Ananya Panday, started off well at the box office, but its earnings dipped sharply after a successful opening day. Dharma Productions, which is one of the film's producers, tweeted that Liger's worldwide collection on its opening day was Rs. 33.12 crore, which is among the highest recorded this year. The figure is also higher than what was projected as the film's opening collection by the Times of India. 

Liger marked Deverakonda's Hindi film debut, Panday's Telugu film debut, and had a cameo by boxing champion Mike Tyson. According to Box Office India, the Hindi version of Liger made a disappointing Rs. 13.75 crore in its first weekend and the website estimates the film lost approximately Rs. 1.25 crore because audiences flocked to the Asia Cup cricket match between India and Pakistan, rather than Deverakonda's mixed martial arts in Liger. The four-day weekend earnings of the film across India were around Rs 35 crore with Andhra Pradesh contributing around Rs. 18 crore. 

When asked about Liger's performance at the box office, film exhibitor Akshaye Rathi speculated that the film may have suffered because its promos didn't feel compelling enough to audiences. "The intent was to cater to the lowest common denominator, to the volume that the Indian market offers; and in those kinds of scenarios, we have successes and we have failures,"  he said. While reviews have criticised Liger for its plot, Rathi said, "The least important thing in the movie from the audience's point of view is the story. The most important thing is the storytelling. When your storytelling is not compelling enough, when it doesn't excite people enough to want to go watch the movie on the day of its release, you know things are wrong." 

Rathi described Liger as "more of a satellite-friendly film than an OTT-friendly film." "The satellite audience is the mass audience, the OTT audience stereotypically goes to the premium multiplexes," he said. With no major releases lined up for this week, Liger's producers will be hoping the film stages a recovery. However, the negative reviews that it has received are unlikely to help its prospects. 

While Liger's box office performance has been disappointing, it has fared better than Laal Singh Chaddha, which made Rs. 37.96 crores by the end of its opening weekend. Meanwhile, the relatively low-budget Telugu film, Karthikeya 2, is expected to make a lifetime collection of Rs. 25 crore approximately, despite its limited release.