Shaakuntalam box office: Samantha Ruth Prabhu film has disappointing opening weekend, grosses less than ₹10 cr worldwide

Actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu’s latest release Shaakuntalam has turned out to be a box office dud.

In its opening weekend globally, the Gunasekhar directorial, which was dubbed and released in Tamil as well as Hindi, has not managed to gross over ₹10 crore, which is reportedly the lowest opening for a film made over a budget of ₹50 crore.

In Shaakuntalam, Samantha plays the central character Shakuntala, daughter of Menaka and Viswamithra. The project marked her maiden collaboration with director Gunasekhar. Trade analyst Trinath told HT that the film has turned out to be a disaster at the box office with the lowest opening ever for a Samantha-starrer.

“Samantha’s films have always managed to register good to decent openings. Even her last release Yashoda, despite mixed reviews, opened strongly at the box office. Shaakuntalam was rejected from the first show and after collecting around ₹5 crore on the first day worldwide, the film couldn’t recover at all. In the opening weekend, it didn’t even collect over ₹10 crore globally,” Trinath said.

Meanwhile, Telugu trade portal Andhra Box Office took to Twitter on Monday to share that Shaakuntalam has registered the lowest opener for a film made on a budget of over ₹50 crore.“Shaakuntalam: 1st time ever in Telugu cinema’s history, a film made in big budget ( ₹50 crore plus, makers claim up to ₹80 crore) failed to gross double digits in its opening weekend. A box office disaster of the highest order! Non-theatricals can’t save the day either with satellite pending (sic),” the tweet read.

Samantha recently described her role in Shaakuntalam as the closest she could get to her dream of playing a ‘Disney princess’. Samantha wrote: “And I finally watched the movie today! Gunasekhar garu.. you have my heart. What a beautiful film! One of our greatest epics brought to life so endearingly! I can’t wait for our family audiences to be swept away by the powerful emotions! And all you kids out there… you’re going to love our magical world! Dil Raju garu (brother) and Neelima… Thank you for this wonderful journey. Shaakuntalam will forever be close to me (sic).”