Akshay Kumar's latest comedy film ‘Khel Khel Mein' seems to have failed to impress the audiences on its opening day at the box office. The movie, which also stars Fardeen Khan, Taapsee Pannu and Vaani Kapoor, faced stiff competition from the highly anticipated horror comedy sequel ‘Stree 2' as well as John Abraham's action thriller ‘Vedaa' on Independence Day, resulting in lackluster ticket sales for the Akshay Kumar starrer.
Early reports from movie tracking websites suggest that ‘Khel Khel Mein' managed to collect approximately Rs. 5 crores on its first day. In comparison, ‘Stree 2' dominated the box office with massive earnings of over Rs. 54 crores. ‘Vedaa' also outperformed ‘Khel Khel Mein', raking in Rs. 6.52 crores on day one. With the bulk of audiences flocking to watch ‘Stree 2' on the big screen, the other new releases seemed to have taken a significant hit.
This discouraging opening further adds to Akshay Kumar's string of unsuccessful movies this year. Directed by Muddasir Aziz, ‘Khel Khel Mein' is Akshay's third flop of 2024 after the forgettable ‘Sarfira' and ‘Bade Miyan Chote Miyan'. The actor is going through a rough patch post-pandemic, delivering only one solo hit so far amongst multiple releases. However, ‘Khel Khel Mein' did manage to outperform some of Akshay's other recent box office disasters like ‘Sarfira', ‘Mission Raniganj' and ‘Selfiee' in terms of its day one business.
It remains to be seen if favorable word-of-mouth publicity and positive reviews for ‘Khel Khel Mein' can help boost its box office numbers in the coming days. For now, it seems Akshay Kumar and his latest comedy offering have failed to take home a ‘win' against the domination of Horror-comedy kingpin ‘Stree' and John Abraham's action entertainer ‘Vedaa' on opening day.
