83: Sports drama to run into losses in crores, Ranveer Singh to let go of his fees?

The Kabir Khan directorial sports drama 83 was released on December 24 and it didn't have quite an opening that was expected. The ambitious project by the director is led by Ranveer Singh who plays the role of the former cricket captain Kapil Dev under whose leadership, India won its first World Cup in 1983. However, the big-budget film managed to collect only over Rs 47 crore over its opening weekend. Despite being the national holiday due to Christmas, the collections of the movie have been below the mark. 

According to Bollywood Hungama, the underperformance of the movie has stunned the film industry and the producers of the film including Deepika Padukone. The film is now said to run into losses worth crores. According to the portal, a source close to producers of the film said that the blame game will start soon. The source further said that someone from the production team had pointed out the film looks and feels like a documentary on the 1983 World Cup. "What was the need to shoot at the pricey Lords stadium in London when there are so many similarly vast cricket stadiums right here in India? But the naysayers were shut down by those from the film unit who were fully confident of getting the audience into theatres,” the source revealed. 

It is also being said that Ranveer Singh is yet to be paid full compensation for his role in the movie. He may be forced to let it go to cover up some of the losses. But this would be a huge blow for the director as his earlier high-budget film Tubelight also ran into huge losses. The film had Salman Khan as its lead. 

Meanwhile, 83 is running successfully in theatres. The OTT release for the drama is yet to be confirmed.