Sonakshi Sinha’s Akira will make Rs. 20 crore in its opening weekend!

Sonakshi Sinha is ready to give us an action heroine with AKira this Friday. Here's what Trade has to say about its fate at the box office.

Trade is hopeful it can work its magic riding on A. R. Murugadoss’ shoulder…

Sonakshi Sinha‘s last big hit was Akshay Kumar starrer Holiday A Soldier is Never off Duty which was directed by A R Murugadoss and was a remake of Tamil hit Thuppakki. Since then she has only seen disappointments in the form of Action Jackson and Tevar. After a brief hiatus, the actress will be back on the big screen and this time she is going solo. Akira has the actress beating goons to pulp but she too has a backstory. The trailers look pretty promising for an actress to do such a strong role and bank on no one to move ahead. So we decided to talk to our Trade Analyst Akshaye Rathi as to what he thinks are the prospects of the film at the box office. He sounded pretty confident about A R Murugadoss’ way of executing a film and a bit on Sonakshi as well.
When asked what he feels about Akira, Rathi explains, “I am a big fan of the hero of the film – Murugadoss. And considering his track record, I mean Ghajini and Holiday, both of which were hugely successful film. He is right out there commercial mainstream filmmaker. And if he has decided to do it here, I am sure it will be promising with his name there. And Sonakshi has been synonymous with mass appealing films. Barring Lootera, all the films she has done were massy. Yes they were done with stars like Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan. I certainly think it holds a lot of promise.”
So can Sonakshi pull the crowd to the theatre alone? “It’s not Sonakshi, it’s the package, it always is. The entertainment value the promos promised, the novelty of the subject. I don’t think there are many hindi films which toplines actresses and are out and out action entertainers. So it is the novelty value that is involved. Women centric films are generally urban, metro and multiplex savvy but this one will be kickass in single screens.”
It was time to know what Akshaye feels about the box office earnings Akira can look at and he sounded pretty positive. “I think bare minimum it should do, by looks of it and the buzz around, around 5 crore on opening day. Over the weekend, depending on the merit of the film, it could touch 20. I believe it’s pretty reasonably made. The COP (Cost of production) is around 13 crores. If you see the promos, there are no huge production values and all. And Sonakshi Sinha being the co-producer, wouldn’t have charged her entire fee. Anurag Kashyap as an actor would be pretty reasonable. There are no big names who would take big paycheque.” So a low budget content driven film which can do wonders at the box office if it clicks, now that’s something we would love to see too.
But of course Akshaye has something to remind us here too. “It depends on the merit of the film. Here what I am relying on is Murugadoss.  I know he isn’t a big name in Hindi belt than he is down South. The merit of his direction is what I am referring to when I say he is the hero of the film. Sonakshi is a good name for it have but for a film like this it will be the merit of content and how Murugadoss has made films in the past.”
So clearly, Sonakshi will need good content to back her because she already has the real star of the film Murugadoss behind her.