Mastizaade, a sex comedy featuring a former porn star, and Saala Khadoos, a boxing drama based on real events, squared off in Indian cinemas last Friday. Neither, however, could lay a glove on the reigning box-office champ Airlift.
Pundits were not surprised by the rankings after Airlift, director Raja Krishna Menon’s drama inspired by the mass evacuation of Indians from Kuwait during the Iran-Iraq War in 1990, organised by businessman Ranjit Katyal, rang up a lucrative 83.5 crore ($12.3 million) in its first week.
Propelled by word of mouth, Airlift fetched an estimated 18.5 crore ($2.7 million) in its second weekend, taking its total to 102 crore ($15 million), headliner Akshay Kumar’s fourth film to surpass 100 crore, joining Housefull 2, Rowdy Rathore and Holiday.
Directed and written by Milap Zaveri, Mastizaade stars former adult actress Sunny Leone in the dual roles of twin sisters Laila and Lily, who run a sex addiction clinic. Each is pursued by womanizing bachelors played by Tusshar Kapoor and Vir Das.
The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) gave the film an A for adults certificate after the producers volunteered to make 349 cuts and the CBFC suggested a further 32. Zaveri wrote the hit adult comedies Masti and Grand Masti and the upcoming sequel Great Grand Masti but his luck seems to have run out with Mastizaade, which pocketed an estimated 11.7 crore ($1.7 million) on Friday and Saturday. That’s tracking below Kyaa Kool Hain Hum 3, the film billed as India’s first ‘porn-com,’ which opened the previous weekend and took a ho-hum 29.65 crore ($4.3 million) in its first week.