Teja Sajja’s Hanu Man competes with Katrina Kaif’s Merry Christmas; both films collect around Rs 2 crore on day 1 | Hindi Movie News – Times of India

2023 was a blockbuster year with films like Jawan, Pathan, Gadar 2, Animal, Tiger 3 , Salaar: Part 1- Ceasefire etc ruling the box office. One common factor amongst all these films was that they were backed by huge stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Ranbir Kapoor and Sunny Deol and the same was expected from 2024. But the start of the year has begun on a different note.

2024 for Hindi films began with the release of Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupati’s Merry Christmas, directed by Sriram Raghavn. The film is based on Frédéric Dard‘s French novel Le Monte-charge. It was a solo Hindi release and given the strong word of mouth and last films of Sriram like Badlapur and Andhadhun doing well, one would have expected the film to take a good start, but as per Sacnilk the film opened to about just Rs 2.55 crore.
The film faced competition from Telugu film called Hanu Man, which is led by Teja Sajja and is directed by Prasanth Varma. As per early estimates by Sacnilk, the film has minted Rs 2 crore in the Hindi circuits. Many analysts feel that the number is higher and it will be on par or higher than Katrina’s Merry Christmas, however only figures can confirm who will emerge victorious. Hanu Man is the modern re-telling of the story of the legend of Lord Hanuman based in the fictional village of Anjandari.