Akshay & Kareena Deliver the Biggest BO Shocks of 2026

Haiwaan and Daayra Face Box Office Setbacks

The year of 2026 is not over yet, and it has already delivered two big shocks at the box office. The first is Priyadarshan’s Haiwaan, followed by Meghna Gulzar’s Daayra. The movies arrived back-to-back in two weeks and emerged as disasters.

Daayra has taken a start of Rs. 1 crore, which is very low for a film of Kareena Kapoor Khan and trade experts are saying that the lifetime collections are expected to be around Rs. 15 crores. On the other hand, Haiwaan also had a similar start, and its lifetime collections will somehow touch the mark of Rs. 10 crores, which is not expected from an Akshay Kumar film.

Trade experts have pointed out a lot of reasons for both the films not working at the box office. But the major thing that has been addressed is the lack of audience interest due to the wrong promotional strategy.

Haiwaan was creating headlines before the release after it was reported that Akshay Kumar would play a villain. However, the hype was over once the teaser and trailer were released. None of them were impactful enough to make audiences excited to watch the movie on the big screen.

Daayra also went through the same situation. Apart from that, the movie suffered from the absence of the star value that is generally needed to attract audiences.

Netizens reacted on social media by saying that having popular faces as the leads is not sufficient for a film to work at the box office. They said that apart from having a strong subject, the trailer and other promotional assets have to be strong enough to pull the public. They noted that Daayra and Haiwaan did not have any of these.

Trade analysts noted that the makers of both the films were possibly depending on a miracle to happen, as it did in the case of Hanuman Ansh. However, they said that the producers forgot the fact that Hanuman Ansh had powerful content, which was missing from Daayra and Haiwaan.

The failure of both films has now raised a debate on whether the film industry should go back to the old days, with every actor working on profit-sharing models. Netizens said that the budgets must be reduced for a film to work at the box office again. But they also expressed doubts about how many are going to listen at a time when Bollywood is suffering losses.