Akshay Kumar's latest film Sky Force, which released on the Republic Day weekend this year, is being hailed as 2025's first hit film and the successful debut of newbie Veer Pahariya. According to trade portal Sacnilk, Sky Force earned a total of ₹86.5 crore in its first week and around ₹100 crore till its 10th day at the domestic box office.
Trade analysts, however, refuse to believe that these figures are organic. Film critic and trade analyst Komal Nahta recently made a huge claim about the latest Akshay Kumar-led film's box office collections.
In a now viral note, Nahta said that the film underperformed in its first week despite decent public reviews.
"It started very slow on Friday but picked up on the second day. Collections grew even more on Sunday because of the Republic Day fervour which went well with the patriotic flavour of the film. However, collections dropped again from Monday onwards," the note read.
The veteran film critic and reviewer then laid down the film's actual box office collection in India. As per Nahta, the film made ₹5.50 crore on Friday, ₹10.50 crore on Saturday, and ₹14 crore on Sunday, taking its total first weekend numbers to ~₹30 crore.
He then said that the film went onto rake in around ₹10.50 crore during the weekdays, taking its total week 1 numbers to ₹40.50 crore and not ₹80 crore as is being reported by some trade portals.
"Of course, the records will show total records of ₹80 crore but that's because heavy block booking of the unsold tickets was done on each single day of the first week to give the impression that the film was performing extraordinarily at the ticket counters. This was, perhaps, the maximum block bookings anyone had ever done in the history of Bollywood."
He further claimed that block bookings were initially done across India and in multiplexes and cinemas belonging to national chains. "It was later restricted mainly to PVR Inox chain of cinemas because PVR Inox Pictures is the all-India distributor of the film."
Block bookings take place when producers and actors know that they would not get a huge boost in box office collections from corporate bookings but also cannot randomly self-buy tickets and have no one turn up for the shows.
Nahta's claims on Sky Force's box office numbers seem to hold water since the film's tickets were almost being sold for free on ticketing platforms ahead of its release. Sky Force makers even ran an offer on PVR and INOX apps through which viewers could book tickets at ₹400 off per transaction using the code FLYHIGH400.
They then gave the audience ₹250 off with the code FLYHIGH250. On BookMyShow, another offer was floated wherein fans could book tickets at ₹250 off using the code SKYFORCE250 for the opening weekend.