Two films, two different storylines, and impressive star casts, yet one is doing wonders while another struggles to hold its grip at the box office. Batwara 1947 and Awarapan 2’s box-office clash yielded shocking results, and even critics who assumed that Sunny Deol’s Batwara would perform better than Emraan Hashmi’s Awarapan were surprised by the numbers.
Akkshay Rathie, director at Aashirwad Theatres Pvt Ltd, spoke about the surprising box office performance of the two films and shared, “Every star has a certain perceived value and set of expectations that their fans have when it comes to the image, which really optimises the business of the film. When it comes to Awarapan and Sunny Deol’s Batwara 1947,it is a classic case of Emraan Hashmi
doing what his fans enjoy the most and Sunny Deol doing the exact opposite of what his fans expect of him. And that probably is the reason why the performance of Awarapan was beyond expectation and the performance of Batwara was suboptimal.”
Vishek Chauhan, who is a prominent Indian film exhibitor, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and owner of Roopbani Cinema, and a well-known trade analyst, shared that he believes it is Sunny Deol’s portrayal of a Muslim guy that has caused a dent in the film’s business.
First, while sharing what went wrong with Sunny Deol’s film, he shared, “Many things were wrong with Batwara. The first thing was the whole premise. Sunny Deol has a very strong nationalist Indian image, which he has cultivated over the last 25–30 years with Gadar, Indian, Maa Tujhe Salaam, etc. Making him into a Muslim who goes to Pakistan kind of inverts the whole image that Sunny Deol has.”
Stating that the mood of the nation is not of bhai-chara right now, he added, “What you’re really professing and propagating, or telling the world, is some lofty, idealistic, nonsensical crap, as per the audience.”
He concluded by saying, “Every critic ripped apart Awarapan 2, called it a useless film, but look at the business.”
About The Films
Batwara 1947 is a 2026 Hindi-language period drama co-written and directed by Rajkumar Santoshi and produced by Aamir Khan under Aamir Khan Productions. Set in Lahore against the backdrop of the 1947 Partition of India and the division of Punjab, the film stars Sunny Deol, Preity Zinta, Shabana Azmi, Karan Deol, Ali Fazal, Abhimanyu Singh, Khushi Hajare, Kanikka Kapur and Isha Sandhir.
Meanwhile, Awarapan 2 is directed by Nitin Kakkar and produced by Vishesh Bhatt under the banner of Vishesh Films. The film is a sequel to the 2007 film Awarapan and stars Emraan Hashmi, Disha Patani and Shabana Azmi in key roles.
