Mere Husband Ki Biwi box office collection Day 3: Arjun Kapoor-starrer barely holds on as Chhaava juggernaut continues to dominate Indian cinema

Mere Husband Ki Biwi box office collection Day 3: Arjun Kapoor, who played the primary antagonist in 2024’s big success, Singham Again, faced the litmus test as the only male lead of a film with Mudassar Aziz’s Mere Husband Ki Biwi. The film, headlined by Bhumi Pednekar and Rakul Preet Singh, is essentially a film about them, and Arjun happily playing second fiddle to their onscreen shenanigans. Just like Aziz’s recent films, this too was a comedy of errors that received mixed reviews. Nevertheless, according to trade website Sacnilk, the film has managed to earn Rs 1.1 crore on Day 3 of its run, taking the total collections to Rs 4.31 crore after the opening weekend.

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With the film just managing to have a 15.82% occupancy, and the matinee and evening shows having a commendable 18.01% and 22.88% occupancy, it shows signs that the family audiences are giving this film a chance to entertain them. Aziz is known for his simple, and straightforward comedies that solely focusses on entertainment, and seals in a message or two in the narrative. So, interestingly, facing the onslaught of the Chhaava juggernaut, Mere Husband Ki Biwi is still holding simply because of being a completely different alternative at the movies. Indian cinema can do with this positioning of films finding themselves in box-office clashes that can’t be averted. But again, the comparison is too skewed because Mere Husband Ki Biwi has made Rs 4.31 crore after three days of run, and Chhaava has made around Rs 40 crore on Day 10, the second Sunday of its run.

Notably, this is also a slightly better showing for an Arjun Kapoor film as his previous theatrical release as the lead hero, Kuttey, only made Rs 3.42 crore in the opening weekend despite being star-studded, and directed by Vishal Bhardwaj’s son, Aasmaan Bhardwaj. But he’d prefer getting back to his Ek Villain Returns days as the 2022 film made a whopping Rs 23.54 crores in the opening weekend with the Day 3 numbers being Rs 9.02 crores, more than double of what Mere Husband Ki Biwi made in the opening weekend.

Nevertheless, Hindi cinema should have the space for multiple films to exist in the same ecosystem at the same time, and Mere Husband Ki Biwi finding its place under the sun next to Chhaava is, in a way, a positive sign because it is two direct Hindi films that are fighting for the Hindi cinema audience’s attention. There are no dubbed versions of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada or Malayalam films that are vying for their attention. It is between Chhaava and Mere Husband Ki Biwi, and it all comes down to the better product, the better budget, and simply, the better hype.