Maa box office collection day 5: Kajol’s mythological horror film earns Rs 23 crore, faces stiff competition from Aamir Khan’s Sitaare Zameen Par

Maa is also Kajol’s highest grosser as the solo lead across her 30-year-plus career. Her last solo release, Revathy’s 2022 relationship drama Salaam Venky, earned only Rs 1.25 crore at the Indian box office. In 2018, late Pradeep Sarkar’s Helicopter Eeela, which starred Kajol as a helicopter mom, also collected only Rs 4.13 crore at the domestic box office. Thus, Maa has emerged as Kajol’s first film as a solo lead to earn in double digits.

However, the box office performance of Maa isn’t even a fraction on that of her husband Ajay Devgn’s supernatural thriller Shaitaan, which released last year. Co-produced by Devgn and directed by Vishal Furia, Maa belongs to the world of Shaitaan. Vikas Bahl’s Shaitaan, which earned Rs 14.75 crore on its opening day itself, enjoyed a lifetime domestic collection of Rs 147.97 crore over a couple of months before it dropped on Netflix India.

Currently, Maa is facing stiff competition from RS Prasanna’s coming-of-age sports comedy Sitaare Zameen Par, starring Aamir Khan. It is the spiritual sequel to Aamir’s 2007 directorial debut Taare Zameen Par and the official remake of the 2018 Spanish film Campeones. The film has earned Rs 4 crore on Tuesday, more than the day’s earnings of Maa, even though it’s the film’s 12th day at the box office.

Beginning this Friday, Maa will face more competition from two new Hindi releases — Anurag Basu’s romantic anthology Metro… In Dino and the dubbed version of Scarlett Johansson-starrer sci-fi adventure thriller epic Jurassic World Rebirth. Given its current trajectory, Maa should at least be able to hit the Rs 30 crore mark in India.

In an exclusive interview with SCREEN, Kajol talked about her two upcoming releases after Maa, Sarzameen and The Trial season 2. “In the 34 years of my career, I’ve worked more in my 33rd year than I have in the last god knows how many years. All of these came to me at around the same time, and I didn’t want to not do them just because of time constraints. I thoroughly enjoyed doing them and am very, very happy with everything that’s coming up,” she said.