The tag of ‘Khooni Monday’ became quite a rage after being used in a song in Go Goa Gone. What’s interesting, however, is that just like everyone else, even our Bollywood folks find Mondays dreadful. Wonder why?
The first weekend of every film these days is considered to be the high-priority period. Reason being that a film stands to do maximum business on the first three days of its release – namely Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Mondays, however, are the true litmus test for even the biggest of the releases as the drop in the business determines the run of a film through the remaining days of the week.
In this analytical report, we compare the box office collections of first Friday with first Monday to see how a movie has held on this litmus test day — and in the case of Mahavatar Narsimha, the results are nothing short of surprising.
Released alongside Sarzameen in cinemas and the Netflix original Mandala Murders, Mahavatar Narsimha opened with modest figures of Rs. 1.46 crore. With relatively low buzz and minimal pre-release hype, the film was expected to follow a similar trajectory as several recent releases — a drop on Monday. But contrary to expectations and the industry norm, the film saw an extraordinary surge in collections, raking in Rs. 3.89 crore on its first Monday.
That’s a staggering 166.44% growth from its opening day, making Mahavatar Narsimha one of the rare Hindi releases in recent memory to more than double its Day 1 numbers on Day 4. This sharp uptick indicates that strong word-of-mouth and positive audience feedback are driving footfalls, something that eluded several bigger films earlier this year.
To put this growth in context, even successful releases like Saiyaara and Jaat only managed a 10.23% and 4.29% increase, respectively, on their first Mondays. Mahavatar Narsimha has thus outperformed them by a massive margin when it comes to sustaining momentum after the weekend.
Meanwhile, other 2025 releases fared poorly on this crucial weekday. Badass Ravi Kumar suffered a massive crash of 85.8%, while established big-ticket films like Housefull 5 fell by 58.93%, Sikandar by 50%, Sky Force by 47.06%, and Raid 2 by 42.76%. Even highly anticipated titles like Kesari Chapter 2 and Chhaava, the latter being the year’s biggest hit so far, saw dips of 42.6% and 27.19%, respectively. Sitaare Zameen Par, another star-driven release, dropped 20.56%.
This rare Monday spike for Mahavatar Narsimha signals a shift in audience reception and suggests the film could be in for a longer theatrical run than initially predicted. Whether the film can maintain this momentum across the weekdays remains to be seen, but for now, it has passed the Monday test with flying colours — and emerged as a true outlier in a year filled with dramatic Monday declines.
If the upward trend continues, Mahavatar Narsimha could well become the dark horse of 2025’s box office calendar — powered not by star power or franchise legacy, but by content that’s clearly connecting with its audience.