Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan must be on cloud nine following the stupendous success of his latest release, "Chennai Express" at the box office but television serial producer turned filmmaker Ekta Kapoor is reportedly fuming with anger as she thinks his film has affected the collections of her ambitious flick, "Once Upon A Time in Mumbai Dobaara" (OUATIMD).
"Chennai Express", featuring Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone, continued to do well at the theatres even after a week into its release, affecting the collections of "OUATIMD" badly. It is reported that SRK failed to keep his word to make way for Ekta's film.
"OUATIMD" was scheduled for release on 8 August but had to be delayed after the makers of "Chennai Express" announced that they would release the film on the date, which was eventually delayed by a day to coincide Eid festival. Ekta reportedly agreed to push her film to Independence Day, 15 August, after UTV Motion Pictures and Red Chillies Entertainment assured that they would make way for "OUATIMD" in at least 2000 theatres across the country.
However, that was not to happen with "Chennai Express" running without giving chance to "OUATIMD", and the latter ended up with just 1600 screens.
"If UTV had lived up to its promise, OUATIMD could have raked in about Rs 10 crore more on its opening day which in turn might have had a Domino effect on its subsequent collections. To add to Balaji's woes the halls they were given were small ones which in turn must have had an adverse effect on their opening day collection," a source from the industry told the Times of India.
"Whatever has happened is extremely disgusting. I am very angry," Ekta told the daily.
"Chennai Express" earned ₹33.12 crore on the opening day, breaking the first day collection record of ₹30.50 crore set by Salman's "Ek Tha Tiger". It went on to earn ₹100.42 crore at domestic box office in the first weekend and collected ₹25.23 crore in the second weekend.
Meanwhile, "OUATIMD" starring Akshay Kumar, Imran Khan and Sonakshi Sinha, collected ₹10.25 crore on the opening day and went to rake in ₹40 crore in the opening weekend, but it went downhill thereafter while "Chennai Express" kept earning decent income.