Naam Shabana Day 1 box office collection: Taapsee Pannu-Akshay Kumar's film fails to beat Baby's opening day business

Taapsee Pannu's Naam Shabana opened to a good response and did an average business at the domestic box office on its first day. However, the film has failed to beat the opening day box office collection record of Baby by a big margin.

Naam Shabana registered an occupancy of only 25 percent in around 2100 screens across the domestic market on Friday, March 31. Although the occupancy was low during the morning shows, its business shot up towards the evening. One of the prime reasons for the increase in the number of tickets being sold in the evening shows was because of the positive word-of-mouth and Akshay Kumar's star power.

The action-thriller film has collected Rs 5.12 crore at the domestic market on its opening day and failed to beat Baby that had raked in Rs 9.30 crore at the domestic box office on its first day. "#NaamShabana gets a boost due to Akshay's star power... Evening shows fare better... Fri ₹ 5.12 cr. India biz," Trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted.

However, the movie is expected to collect a good figure at the Indian box office over the weekend.

Directed by Shivam Nair, Naam Shabana is the spin-off Akshay's Baby, which also starred Taapsee and Anupam Kher. It is the first spin-off in Indian cinema. Manoj Bajpayee, Anupam and South star Prithviraj Sukumaran play key roles, while Akshay has an extended cameo in the film.

A major section of critics said that Taapsee left an impression in her short role in Baby compared to the full-fledged lead role in Naam Shabana. Except for the performances, the story and the songs aren't interesting enough. Also, the first and the second halves of the movie are quite contrasting.

The story of Naam Shabana revolves around Shabana (Taapsee) who lives in the heart of Mumbai city. Her college friend Jai (Taher) secretly admires her but never really expresses it. Shabana's life changes when some local goons kill Jai mercilessly. She then gets in touch with an undercover agent Ranvir Singh (played by Manoj) to seek revenge against Jai's murderers. In return, Ranvir asks Shabana to train for a secret mission and expose Tony (Prithviraj), who deals with human trafficking across the globe. Akshay and Anupam's characters help Shabana get hold of Tony.