With Adipurush tickets for Rs 150 and edited dialogues, makers are desperate to get audiences back
It has been less than a week since Adipurush released in theatres and the controversies (and memes) are not ending. In a desperate move for damage control, the producers have decided to sell tickets at a price of Rs 150 in multiplex chains like PVR, Inox and Cinepolis.
But before you celebrate...
The offer is valid only for 3D shows of Adipurush on June 22 (Thursday) and June 23 (Friday).
And now, audiences of the Hindi version of Adipurush would also bear witness to "edited and changed dialogues".
As dialogue writer Manoj Muntashir had revealed a few days ago, his allegedly "pedestrian" dialogues will be edited to not hurt any religious sentiments.
The part where Hanuman (or Bajrang as he is known throughout the film) tells Raavan's son Indrajit, "tel tere baap ka, aag teri baap ki, jalegi bhi tere baap ki" has now been altered with the edited dialogue, "tel teri Lanka ka, aag teri Lanka ka, jalegi bhi tere Lanka hi".
Replacing Raavan with his kingdom sounds even weirder when Hanuman says it out aloud. Further, the dubbing seems shoddy enough for anyone to figure out that Hanuman is actually saying "baap".
Offer not valid everywhere
As per PVR, the offer is not valid in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It is clear that the dialogues of the Telugu version and the Malayalam and Tamil dubs have better dialogues that don't require any editing.
But this move seems to show some desperation of part of the Adipurush team which was otherwise gaining a lot of pre-release buzz with promotion tactics like reserving one seat in every theatre for Hanuman.
The fact that celebrities like Ranbir Kapoor (and even Ananya Birla for some reason) were buying hundreds and thousands of tickets for underprivileged children was also adding to the hype for Adipurush.
ALSO READ: From Mukesh Khanna to Ramanand Sagar Ramayan cast, how are the oldies reacting to Adipurush?
The extremely poor reviews, the #BoycottAdipurush trends and Muntashir's dialogues ultimately proved to bring about Adipurush's downfall. Despite the Rs 500-600 budget epic having a strong weekend, it failed the "Monday test" and has been underperforming ever since. All those advertised advanced bookings have given way to half-empty shows.
Adipurush raked in Rs 86.75 crore on its opening Friday and managed to earn Rs 65.25 crore and Rs 69.1 crore on Saturday and Sunday respectively. Word of mouth has drastically reduced the sales as it could earn only Rs 16 crore on Monday and Rs 10 crore on Tuesday. The number fell to Rs 7.25 crore on Wednesday (June 21).
Domestically earning over Rs 255 crore at the box office and with hardly any chances of witnessing another strong weekend, Adipurush is most likely to not make up for its extravagant budget.
This isn't Prabhas's only big-budget pan-Indian flop as even though he starred in the Baahubali franchise, his 2022 romantic drama Radhe Shyam could earn only Rs 200-214 crore against a budget of Rs 300 crore. Even the Prabhas and Shraddha Kapoor-led spy thriller Saaho was an above average grosser, earning Rs 407-439 crore against a 350 crore budget.
In the end, those Rs 150 tickets are highly unlikely to make Adipurush make up for its budget.