Fighter Box Office Decoded: Hrithik Roshan’s Film Fails to Connect with Masses |

The year has started on a very different note for the film industry. Unlike last year, where films with big stars were doing wonders at the box office, 2024 saw a rather lesser known director-actor combination of Prasanth Varma and Tejja Sajja take the cake with the modern day retelling of Lord Hanuman’s tale with the film ‘Hanu Man’.
All eyes were set on Hrithik Roshan and Siddharth Anand’s third collaboration ‘Fighter‘, which released on 25 January. The film opened to an underwhelming collection of Rs 22.5 crore and jumped big on Republic Day, collecting Rs 39.5 crore. ‘Fighter’ collection then dropped to Rs 27.5 crore on Saturday and Sunday saw an upward trend again with Rs 29 crore. But post the weekend, the film has dipped massively, earning just Rs 8 crore on Monday, Rs 7.5 crore on Tuesday, Rs 6.5 crore on Wednesday and Rs 6 crore on Thursday as per Sacnilk,taking first week collection to Rs 146.5 crore.

Decoding the crash, Trade Analyst Atul Mohan shares that the film didn’t have much for the audience, he said, “The audience rejected the film, if you compare with the collections of last year’s films, Fighter’s collection wasn’t that huge. Also the pre-release buzz for Fighter was also cold. A majority of the audience felt that it was a routine film where there will be Pakistan bashing…the audience didn’t feel that there was any WOW factor in the film for which they should go and watch it in the theaters.”
“It is true that Fighter had the advantage of the Republic Day holiday and a lot of people thought it’s a big film with Hrithik and Deepika with Siddharth Anand. The film is actually not a bad one, but content wise, there was nothing for the audience. Fighter is a very classy and stylish film, but there wasn’t much for the audience. The film didn’t have anything for the masses, not the dialogues nor the connect. Take the example of Uri: The Surgical Strike, there was this major scene at the interval point wherein a cremation is taking place in the rains and the martyr officer’s daughter is there… a lot of people were so affected by the scene that they refused to even eat popcorn during the interval. Also the characters are not completely defined,” explained Atul.
Trade Analyst Girish Wankhede felt that the huge dip on Monday happened because it was a working day and that positive buzz about Fighter was missing. He said, “The crash on Monday to collect just Rs 8 was because it was a working day and euphoria for the film died out as Fighter was catering to a very niche audience who were excited about the aerial action. Fighter created a space of a very snobbish and elite film and that was something that didn’t go very well with many viewers. The Tier 2 and Tier 3 city audience couldn’t understand and compliment the high octane aerial action and somewhere the emotional quotient was missing and that is a big thing for any film to work anywhere.”
He further added. “Also the positive word of mouth and the promotion of the film were not up to the mark. Hrithik Roshan, as a star, doesn’t have that acceptability with the audience as Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan. The Khans have a bigger fan base. If you see the entire digital space, there’s hardly any talk about the film. Hrithik Roshan as a star doesn’t have that reach with the masses, which people found with Ranbir Kapoor during Animal as it had a certain emotional quotient.”