Bollywood’s new horror-comedy, The Bhootnii, starring Sanjay Dutt and Mouni Roy, has ended up being a box office washout.
Brought out on May 1, the film performed poorly from day one, gathering a puny ₹60 lakh on Thursday, falling still further to ₹35 lakh on Friday, moving up only nominally to ₹50 lakh both on Saturday and Sunday. Its four-day take is a deplorable ₹1.95 crore, showing no signs of recovery.
Even Sanjay Dutt’s star power hasn’t been enough to draw the crowds, overshadowed by more potent releases like Raid 2 and ongoing success of genre standards like Stree 2, which collected more than ₹500 crore.
The poor performance of the film stems from its appalling content-critics have panned it for a non-existent plot, subpar production qualities, and one-dimensional humour that neither frightens nor amuses.
The college backdrop comes off as artificial, the script is sloppy, and even Dutt’s comedy sense cannot save the film from being mediocre.
The horror-comedy genre isn’t extinct-audiences are just refusing to watch Below-average, cringe-inducing crap. The Bhootnii was doomed the minute its trailer released, hinting at a movie that was not too appealable to the audience.
Unfortunately, this is another Below-average offering in Dutt’s recent body of work, hardly likely to pass even ₹5 crore during its total run.
