Angrezi Medium saw a drop in it’s box office collection on Day 2 down to 2.75 crore according to a report by Box Office India. The declining numbers are very obviously a result of the fear of the COVID-19 virus.
The Irrfan Khan-starrer which released on 13 March, earned Rs 4.03 crore on its opening day. The numbers are decent, considering the coronavirus scare in the country, and shutdown of cinema halls in Delhi and Kerala on the day of its release. But the film would have earned much higher under normal conditions.
“Biz has been severely affected due to closure of cinema halls in several states. #CoronaVirus #COVID19,” wrote trade analyst Taran Adarsh in a tweet.
The numbers were likely to fall since theatres have been shut in Mumbai, a major market for the film, and other cities in Maharashtra like Pune and Nagpur. The state of Karnataka also announced a shutdown of theatres last evening, and now Gujarat too has announced the same.
Speaking to The Quint on 12 March, movie business analyst, Atul Mohan had said that numbers will be “low”.
"I would assume that Angrezi Medium will see a drop of about 15 per cent (one opening day) of the collections because of theatres being shut down in Delhi.”
“The target audience for Angrezi Medium resides in metropolitan cities like Delhi and Mumbai. So, this coronavirus scare is definitely going to have an impact on the film.”Atul Mohan, Movie Business Analyst
Speaking to Mumbai Mirror, producer of the film, Dinesh Vijan said that the announcements of theatre shutdowns came too late, and by then it was impossible to pull the film out.
“We had no option as the film had already opened in the UAE-GCC market on Thursday, when the Chief Minister of Delhi (Arvind Kejriwal) announced shutdown of theatres later in the day. Had we known three-four days ago that this would happen, we might have had time to rethink the release, but on Thursday it was too late to pull out,” he said.
Directed by Homi Adajania and produced by Maddock Films, Angrezi Medium also stars Radhika Madan, Deepak Dobriyal and Kareena Kapoor, among others.
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