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Munna Bhai MBBS was a major critical and commercial hit. The Rajkumari Hirani film, starring Sanjay Dutt, achieved a silver jubilee status. In its 26th week of release, the movie was still playing on 300 screens throughout India. But did you know it opened to empty theatres? The weekend witnessed absolutely no footfall in theatres upon its release on December 19, making the makers of the film believe that the Sanjay Dutt-starrer has tanked at the box office.
In a recent interview, Vidhu Vinod Chopra–the producer of the 2003 film–recalled Hirani’s reaction. “Munna Bhai MBBS opened to empty theatres. Raju was very upset thinking I lost a lot of money. At that time, I told Raju, here is a little money about Rs 11,000. He said, ‘I will take nothing.’ I was like ‘this is for the next film, make one more. Its a great film.’ At that time, we had about Rs 4 crore. I was like make another film. I didn’t care if Munna Bhai worked or not. Although the film started to pick up pace after Monday, the seats were empty during the weekends. I didn’t really wait for the film to become a success for me to make another film,” Chopra told Bollywood Hungama.
Earlier, while speaking at the Kellogg School of Management, Rajkumar Hirani revealed how one of the distributors from Tamil Nadu first agreed to distribute the film, but then refused to go ahead with it after watching the movie.
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“After watching the film, Mohammed Bhai (distributor) told us he can’t take the film as no one will understand the story. The decision was made to return his money and this was just three days before the release,” said Hirani.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra added, “I called a friend of mine, Shyam Shroff, who was a distributor and got one show added in Satyam, a big theatre in Tamil Nadu. He gave me one single show, 11:45 am show for Munna Bhai. You know how much money I made from Tamil Nadu? Rs 1.67 crore.”
The Sanjay Dutt-starrer, which also marks the last film of his father Sunil Dutt, is considered to be a landmark movie in the history of Indian cinema. The film also had a sequel, Lage Raho Munna Bhai, which released in 2006. The sequel too received widespread critical acclaim and proved to be a major box office success.
Apart from Sanjay Dutt, Munna Bhai MBBS also starred Arshad Warsi, Gracy Singh, Jimmy Sheirgill, and Boman Irani in the lead roles.
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