Kangana Ranaut claims ‘Dhaakad’ a victim of negative PR

Actor called films such as 'Gangubai Kathiawadi', 'JugJugg Jeeyo' and '83' box office flops

Kangana Ranaut impressed audiences with her stellar performance in Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi and was last seen in an action film titled Dhaakad. However, much to her dismay, her latest outing bombed at the box office. Now, she's hitting back at reports claiming why her film did not fare well at the box office.

“My producer Deepak Mukut hasn’t sold his office. He even said he recovered all his costs yet negative PR don’t stop. If you want to attack, have courage to attack from the front,” Kangana wrote. Sharing a screengrab of a fringe website’s story calling films such as Radhe Shyam, Gangubai Kathiawadi, JugJugg Jeeyo and 83 box office flops, she added, “Every day I wake up to hundreds of articles of Dhaakad being a flop and no one is talking about these big disasters. Any specific reason?”

As of this month, the Sanjay Leela Bhansali directorial has minted over INR2 billion at the box office while Jugjugg Jeeyo has collected around INR750 million.

In his interview with The Indian Express, Mukut claimed to have recovered his costs with the film. “We had made Dhaakad with a lot of conviction and it was a very well-made film. I don’t know what went wrong but I would like to believe that it’s people’s choice, what they accept and what they not and what they want to watch as well. But according to us, we feel proud to have made a good, female-led spy action thriller, a genre less explored, with good conviction,” he said.

According to Bollywood Hungama, Ranaut’s Dhaakad has ended its run at the box office with disastrous collections across India. “It failed to even earn INR3 crores in its lifetime, thereby proving to be one of the biggest disasters of Indian cinema. It was made on a budget of INR70 crores in addition to print and publicity according to our sources and the recovery from the theatrical revenue is less than even 10% percent of its promotional costs,” the publication shared.

The report further added, “An estimated budget of Dhaakad is around INR85 crores, of which the producers have got less than INR2 crores as distributor share from the theatrical version (India). In overconfidence, the satellite and digital rights were left unsold and thanks to that, there is a big knife riding on their throat about minimising the losses.”