Prahaar: The Untold Story of Ujjwal Nikam has recorded a low opening weekend at the box office, earning under $1 million in its first three days and trailing rival release Nayyi Navelli by a clear margin. Rajkummar Rao's courtroom drama, directed by Avinash Arun and released on October 16, 2026, collected roughly $0.9 million domestically over the weekend — a start that puts its reported $6.3 million budget under pressure and leaves the film needing strong weekday holds to stay alive.
A slow start that never quite recovered
Prahaar opened to a muted response on Friday, earning about $247,000 on day one with occupancy of just 13% across roughly 4,100 shows, according to Sacnilk data reported by the Times of India. Saturday brought a 34% jump to roughly $332,000 as occupancy climbed to 17%, and Sunday held steady at around $369,000. Trade estimates put the three-day domestic total between $0.9 million and $0.96 million, with gross earnings of about $1.1 million and overseas collections adding another $210,000 — a worldwide total of roughly $1.35 million, per Indian Express reporting.
Pinkvilla's box office desk called the weekend "low" and noted the film "needs better trends to move ahead," pointing to mixed word-of-mouth as the chief risk to its weekday run. With show counts already being trimmed day by day, Prahaar must now defy the usual second-week fade that hits slow starters.
Losing the weekend to Nayyi Navelli
The film did not even win its own release window. Yami Gautam's horror comedy Nayyi Navelli, which opened on the same day, finished the weekend ahead at roughly $1.2 million domestically (about $1.5 million gross), according to the Indian Express. Rajkummar Rao's legal drama also faced pressure from Rajinikanth's Jailer 2 and Vijay Deverakonda's Ranabaali, both drawing audiences across the same festive weekend.
The cast features Wamiqa Gabbi as Jyoti Nikam, Lalit Prabhakar as Ajmal Kasab, Jaideep Ahlawat, Sikandar Kher and Ashish Vidyarthi. The film, produced by Dinesh Vijan's Maddock Films, dramatizes the career of public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam — best known for leading the prosecution in the trial of Ajmal Kasab, the lone attacker captured alive during the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks — with the 1993 Bombay bombings cases also woven into the narrative.
Hansal Mehta pushes back on the Shahid comparisons
As the numbers rolled in, an online debate erupted comparing Prahaar with Rajkummar Rao's first courtroom drama, Shahid (2013), which Mehta directed. Mehta firmly rejected the framing, arguing on social media that comparing a film made for roughly $79,000 fourteen years ago with a far bigger budgeted release ignores "basic economics." He wrote that Prahaar "deserves to succeed on its own merits. Not at the altar of another film," as reported by Bollywood Hungama.
Mehta suggested Stree (2018) — Amar Kaushik's horror comedy that opened to about $718,000 and went on to earn roughly $13.6 million domestically — as a fairer benchmark. Stree cost about $2.6 million, less than half of Prahaar's reported $6.3 million budget (a figure other trade reports dispute, with one analyst quoted at closer to $3 million including marketing).
The verdict now rests on weekdays
For a performance-driven courtroom film rather than a spectacle, Prahaar always needed critics and word-of-mouth on its side — and so far that backing is mixed. A reported $6.3 million budget means the $0.9 million opening weekend leaves a long road to recovery, though the steady day-on-day growth offers a sliver of hope. Whether weekday audiences turn up will decide if Rajkummar Rao's turn as Ujjwal Nikam becomes a late-blooming winner or another well-acted misfire at the box office.
Sources: The Indian Express, Pinkvilla, The Times of India, Bollywood Hungama
Watch: the official Prahaar trailer — Rajkummar Rao as prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, facing off in the courtroom with Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving attacker from the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, in this intense three-minute look at the film.
Music in this post's reel: Kevin MacLeod - Life of Riley (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0