Salman Khan’s ‘Sikandar’ fails to record a smashing opening

Salman Khan’s highly-awaited action entertainer, ‘Sikandar’ finally hit the silver screen on March 30. Bringing in the festive spirit of Eid, Bhaijaan fans expected the film to be the return of the star in his element. However, despite the high anticipations, the film opened to a lukewarm collection at the box office. While the opening collection is good, it is not on par with the superstar’s previous commercial successful projects.

As per Sacnilk, the film’s first-day net domestic collection stands at 26 crores, in all languages. With the gross collection recorded at a figure of 31 crores, the 10 crore overseas sales escalated the worldwide collection for day 1 to 41 crores. Meanwhile, looking at the film’s domestic figures, ‘Sikandar’ witnessed an overall 20.95 per cent Hindi occupancy on Sunday in 2D. Conversely, it recorded an overall 22.96 per cent Hindi Occupancy in IMAX 2D.

Advertisement

Trade analyst Taran Adarsh took to X (Twitter) to compare the opening of ‘Sikandar’ to Salman’s previous successful releases. He wrote, “#Sikandar performs well on its opening day but falls short when compared to #SalmanKhan’s previous opening days. Given post-pandemic trends for highly anticipated films, an opening day of ₹ 40 cr+ was expected from #SalmanKhan this time… Collecting this number was even more crucial, considering #Sikandar had the biggest release ever for a #Hindi film in #India – 5500 screens / approx 22,000+ shows per day. However, despite releasing on a Sunday, similar to #Tiger3 [#Diwali 2023], #Sikandar does not feature in #SalmanKhan’s #Top5 *opening days* list.”

#Sikandar performs well on its opening day but falls short when compared to #SalmanKhan‘s previous opening days.

Given post-pandemic trends for highly anticipated films, an opening day of ₹ 40 cr+ was expected from #SalmanKhan this time… Collecting this number was even more… pic.x.com/sv46CCOsjE

— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) March 31, 2025

The data also notes that Salman’s top 5 biggest openers have always recorded sales of over 30 crores at the domestic box office. While ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’ reported an opening of 34.10 crores, ‘Sultan’ collected 36.54 crores in its opening. Meanwhile, ‘Prem Ratan Dhan Payo’ boasts an opening of 40.35 crores. On the other hand, ‘Bharat’ collected 42.30 crores on its day 1 while ‘Tiger 3’ racked up 43 crores.

Additionally, several reports suggest that numerous pirated versions of ‘Sikandar’ have already started making their way to the internet. This could also be a major contributor to the dwindling sales of the film, in the coming days.

Also Read: Sikandar Twitter (X) review: Fans say ‘bring back the old Salman!’

‘Sikandar’ also features Rashmika Mandanna, Kajal Aggarwal, Sharman Joshi, Prateik Smita Patil, and Sathyaraj in key roles. Sajid Nadiadwala has bankrolled the title with AR Murugadoss at the helm.