Batwara 1947 box office collection day 4: Sunny Deol’s partition film has disastrous 1st Monday with shocking 72% drop

Batwara 1947 box office collection day 4: Following the release of Ikka on Netflix in July, which marked Sunny Deol ’s first streaming project, the actor is now back on the big screen with Batwara 1947 . The period drama marks his first theatrical release since last year’s Jaat and has opened alongside Emraan Hashmi’s Awarapan 2 , making the box office competition even tougher. After a modest opening weekend, the film saw a steep drop in collections on its first Monday, putting its theatrical run under pressure. Despite its strong cast and a story rooted in the partition, the film has struggled to gain momentum at the box office.

According to trade tracker Sacnilk, Batwara 1947 saw a sharp drop in collections on its first Monday, August 17. The film earned just ₹ 2 crore net in India, with around 11% occupancy across 6,771 shows. This is a steep 72.4% fall from its Sunday collection of ₹ 7.25 crore.

With this, the film’s four-day India net collection stands at ₹ 28.50 crore, while its India gross has reached ₹ 33.95 crore. Batwara 1947 also earned around ₹ 0.75 crore from overseas markets on Day 4, taking its overseas gross to ₹ 6.25 crore and its worldwide gross to ₹ 40.20 crore.

The big Monday drop is a worrying sign for the film, as the first weekday usually gives a clear idea of how well a movie is holding after its opening weekend. In Batwara 1947’s case, the sharp fall suggests that the film is struggling to maintain audience interest once the weekend is over.

Batwara 1947 is also falling further behind its box office rival, Emraan Hashmi-starrer Awarapan 2. While Sunny's film could manage just ₹ 2 crore net on its first Monday, Awarapan 2 had a much stronger hold, earning ₹ 9.25 crore net on the same day and moving closer to the ₹ 100 crore mark.

The gap between the two films is now hard to ignore. Awarapan 2 made more than four times Batwara 1947’s Monday collection, underlining just how differently the two films have performed at the box office.

The film had several factors working in its favour, including Sunny Deol, Preity Zinta, Shabana Azmi, Ali Fazal and Karan Deol. It also received favourable reviews, but that appreciation has not translated into strong theatrical footfalls.

Directed around the backdrop of the 1947 Partition, the film follows Sikandar Mirza, a Muslim man who moves to Pakistan with his family. His life takes a difficult turn when he discovers that a Hindu woman is living upstairs and refuses to leave. As tensions rise, Sikandar finds himself trying to protect her while also keeping his own family safe.

The film is backed by Aamir Khan Productions and is directed by Rajkumar Santoshi.

Monica Yadav is a senior entertainment journalist with Hindustan Times Entertainment, based in Mumbai, with nearly 11 years of experience covering Bollywood, Hollywood and Asian entertainment, including Korean, Chinese and Thai cinema, television and music. She is among the few Indian journalists in India with a dedicated focus on Korean entertainment, including K-pop and K-dramas, and has interviewed some of the industry's biggest stars while closely tracking the rise of global pop culture.