New Delhi: The remake of the 2011 film Haunted 3D was released on 12 June, and its AI-generated ghosts are winning the box office race against Imtiaz Ali’s Main Vaapas Aaunga.
Directed by Vikram Bhatt, Haunted 3D: Echoes of the Past, has collected nearly Rs 10 crore in its first four days of release against a budget of Rs 15 crore. In comparison, the period drama, Main Vaapas Aaunga, has managed to collect only around Rs 5 crore despite its Rs 70 crore budget.
Haunted 3D is a typical Bollywood horror in which a film director, Dev, played by Mahaakshay Chakraborty, travels to a village and starts living in a mansion-turned-hotel after being betrayed by the woman he loves. There, he meets Sunehri (Chetna Pande), whom only Dev can see. The horror unfolds as AI-generated ghosts haunt the hotel.
Meanwhile, Ali’s Partition-era migration story features Bollywood A-listers Naseeruddin Shah, Diljit Dosanjh, Vedang Raina and Sharvari.
Ali explores the pain of Partition and its aftermath. The story runs across two timelines, where Dosanjh’s character tries to fulfil his grandfather’s last wish to find the woman he loved when he lived in Pakistan before the Partition. When he reaches the locality told by his grandfather during a video call, he is heartbroken to learn that his grandfather’s lover had died a year earlier after spending decades waiting for him.
Narendra Kaushik, Professor and Dean of Film Studies at JERC University, believes that one reason behind Bhatt’s film outperforming Ali at the box office is because of Gen Z’s curiosity about the supernatural. According to him, unlike earlier generations, who grew up hearing ghost stories and even claimed to see them, the youth of today did not grow up listening to horror stories.
“That lack of familiarity makes them more eager to watch stories about ghosts,” Kaushik added.
Speaking about Main Vaapas Aaunga, Kaushik argued that audiences have largely moved on from nostalgia-driven narratives. He recalled how veteran politician LK Advani often spoke emotionally about his childhood in Karachi and the impact of the Partition during his political rallies.
“If a journalist jokingly asked him whether he had visited Karachi after all those speeches, he would reply, ‘Nahi, abhi jaane wala hoon (No, I’m about to go)’,” Kaushik recalled.
The horror film has also performed better than the Kangana Ranaut-starrer Bharat Bhaagya Viddhaata.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)