Awarapan 2 vs Batwara 1947 Box Office Collection Day 1: Emraan Wins
The Awarapan 2 vs Batwara 1947 box office collection day 1 fight is over before it started. Emraan Hashmi's revenge thriller pulled Rs 21 crore net in India on Friday. Sunny Deol's Partition epic? A flat Rs 5.75 crore. That's nearly a 4x gap on the same release date, in the same theatres, on the same long weekend. And here's the part that'll sting for Batwara 1947's producers. The two films played almost the same number of shows. One of them just couldn't fill the seats.
Awarapan 2 Day 1 Box Office Collection
Numbers first, opinions after. - India net: Rs 21 crore - Gross domestic: Rs 25.20 crore - Overall occupancy: 45% - Tickets sold: roughly 1.25 lakh - Shows: 9,505 nationwide Lucknow went wild for it. City occupancy there hit 66%, the best in the country, with Chennai close behind at 59% and NCR at 58.5%. Hyderabad clocked 49.8%, Bengaluru 47%. Mumbai lagged the mass belt at 39.5%, per Business Today's Day 1 tracker. Put that Rs 21 crore next to the original. The 2007 Awarapan earned Rs 7.76 crore in its entire lifetime. The sequel beat that before Friday's late-night shows had even wrapped. Career-best opening for Emraan, no argument. The budget math looks just as healthy. Awarapan 2 cost a reported Rs 45 crore, so Day 1 alone clawed back close to half of it. That also makes it the third-biggest Bollywood opening of 2026. Koimoi analyst Trisha Gaur nailed why it worked: "The audience needs light-hearted films they can emotionally invest in, as much as they need massive actioners."
Batwara 1947 Day 1 Box Office Collection
Now the hard part. - India net: Rs 5.75 crore - Gross domestic: Rs 6.84 crore - Overall occupancy: 15% - Admissions: roughly 21,000 - Shows: 9,223 nationwide Chennai posted the film's best occupancy at 30%, but read the fine print. That came off just 33 shows. Lucknow managed 23.5%, Jaipur 21.3%, NCR 18.3%. Mumbai and Ahmedabad, two of the biggest revenue markets in the country, both sat at 12.5%. Mornings were brutal. Occupancy in the first shows was 7.54% — weaker than Sunny Deol's own Jaat in 2025, which did 8.62%, and nowhere near 2026's top 10 morning openers. Then there's the budget. Batwara 1947 reportedly cost Rs 150 crore. Sunny Deol alone took Rs 60 crore, Preity Zinta Rs 10 crore, Ali Fazal Rs 7 crore. A Rs 5.75 crore opening barely scratches that. Rajkumar Santoshi directs, Aamir Khan Productions backs it, and the story follows Sikander Mirza's family after their move to Lahore during Partition.
Why the Gap Is This Wide
Distribution isn't the excuse here. Awarapan 2 ran 9,505 shows, Batwara 1947 ran 9,223 — a difference of 282. Yet Awarapan 2 sold roughly six times more tickets. Same screens, same weekend, wildly different demand. So it's genre, not screens. Awarapan 2 is a nostalgia play with a cult soundtrack and a hero people still associate with that 2007 album. Batwara 1947 asks a holiday crowd to sit through a Partition drama. On a long weekend, escapism usually wins. Funny twist though: trade sources tell Bollywood Hungama that Awarapan 2 should have been playing near 14,000 shows given its demand, and that the 9,500 cap "restricted its earning potential." Its real ceiling probably wasn't even touched on Friday. If you're wondering why different trackers quote different numbers for the same film, our explainer on how box office collection is calculated in India breaks down the net-versus-gross mess.
Day 2 Outlook: What Independence Day Changes
Both films landed Friday, Aug 14, with the Aug 15 holiday sitting right behind them. That's the swing factor. For Awarapan 2, trade projections point to a first weekend near Rs 80 crore, with the Rs 100 crore club within reach inside a week if holiday growth holds. Given Friday's occupancy curve, that looks conservative rather than optimistic. For Batwara 1947, today is basically a rescue mission. Its occupancy pattern is night-heavy — Chennai went from 0% in the morning to 49% at night — which means it's living on walk-ins, not planned bookings. Convert the holiday crowd today and it survives the week. Miss it, and the multiplex drop by Day 3 will be ugly. Where Awarapan 2 lands by December is the more interesting question. Check our running list of the highest-grossing Bollywood movies of 2026 so far to see what it has to beat. My call? Emraan's film keeps the lead all weekend and Sunny's doesn't close the gap. Watching the Aug 15 numbers tonight will be fun. Tell us in the comments which one you booked — and whether it was paisa vasool.
