At a time when Bollywood is grappling with back-to-back flops, and amidst the ongoing Kalki 2898 AD tsunami in theatres, director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s action thriller Kill has made a modest, though not great, box office debut. While Kill’s opening day performance surpasses that of many other Bollywood releases this year, if the Lakshya and Raghav Juyal-starrer doesn’t boost its numbers over the weekend, its future remains uncertain.
On its first Friday in theatres, Kill recorded an India nett collection of Rs 1.25 crore, according to industry tracker Sacnilk. While this is more than what major flops like Main Atal Hoon (Rs 1.15 crore), Ruslaan (Rs 60 lakh), Bastar: The Naxal Story (Rs 40 lakh), and Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2 (Rs 15 lakh) earned on their respective release days, it falls short of the collections of films like Yodha (Rs 4.1 crore), Crakk (Rs 4.25 crore), Merry Christmas (Rs 2.45 crore), and Operation Valentine (Rs 1.45 crore), which also underperformed this year.
On Friday, Kill achieved an overall occupancy rate of just 12.28 per cent in the Hindi market. The morning shows started with a meagre 6.33 per cent occupancy, which increased to 11.65 per cent in the afternoon, 11.67 per cent in the evening, and peaked at 19.48 per cent at night. On the same day, which marked its ninth in theatres, director Nag Ashwin and Prabhas’ epic science fiction Kalki 2898 AD registered an India nett collection of Rs 17.25 crore.
During a conversation with The Indian Express, director Nikhil Bhat shared how his personal experience inspired him to write the story of Kill. “Back in 1994-95, as a student, I used to travel sleeper class on the Bombay Janta Express from Patna to Pune. One night, I was jolted awake as the train stopped at a small station. I noticed we weren’t in Allahabad, the expected stop. News then travelled through that the AC coaches were being robbed! In my car, a group of soldiers from Danapur chuckled, confident they’d have stopped any attempt on our sleeper coach. That incident stuck with me for years,” Nikhil recalled.
In her review of the movie, The Indian Express’ Shubhra Gupta wrote “This Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s fast-and-furious tale is its own creature, which takes care to surround us with familiar elements, even when ratcheting the kill quotient as high as it can go.”
Bankrolled by Karan Johar, Guneet Monga, Apoorva Mehta and Achin Jain, Kill premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last year. The film also stars Ashish Vidyarthi, Harsh Chhaya and Tanya Maniktala in key roles.
