 "Toilet: Ek Prem Katha box office collection — Akshay Kumar's film crosses Rs 80 cr on Independence Day")
Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar’s Toilet: Ek Prem Katha was touted as being a film with a social cause — to spread awareness about the lack of adequate sanitation facilities and to encourage people to build toilets. It explored this issue through a plot involving a love story; Pednekar’s Jaya threatens to leave her husband Keshav, played by Kumar, if he does not construct a toilet for her in their house. This film had a good start at the box office, earning Rs 13.10 crore on its opening day and approximately Rs 51 crore over the weekend. Then it raked in Rs 12 crore on Monday, which pushed its box office collection to Rs 63.45 crore. Since Monday was followed by a national holiday on account of Independence Day, the film’s earnings received a boost as it garnered Rs 20 crore at the box office on Tuesday. Thus, its total collection now stands at Rs 83.45 crore. Film critic Taran Adarsh tweeted the figures of the first five days.
#ToiletEkPremKatha Fri 13.10 cr, Sat 17.10 cr, Sun 21.25 cr, Mon 12 cr, Tue 20 cr. Total: ₹ 83.45 cr. India biz. FABULOUS... #TEPK
— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) August 16, 2017
Going by its rate of progress, the film is expected to cross the coveted Rs 100 crore mark before Ashwini Iyer Tiwari’s romantic comedy Bareilly Ki Barfi releases this Friday on 18 August. If it does so, it will become Kumar’s second film to cross the Rs 100 crore mark this year following Subhash Kapoor’s courtroom drama Jolly LLB 2. Toilet: Ek Prem Katha made it to the list of the top ten grossers of 2017 within four days of its release, leaving behind Arjun Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor’s Half Girlfriend and Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma’s Jab Harry Met Sejal. Toilet: Ek Prem Katha is directed by Shree Narayan Singh. Reviewers have criticised it for being more of an ode to the Prime Minister than about the issue of open defecation.
