Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri’s ‘Files’ trilogy, showcasing hidden historical narratives, initially saw success with ‘The Tashkent Files’ and ‘The Kashmir Files,’ the latter becoming a major box office hit. However, his latest installment, ‘The Bengal Files,’ has significantly underperformed, struggling to attract audiences and facing strong competition from new releases like Teja Sajja’s ‘Mirai’.
Over the past decade there has been a steady rise of Nationalist cinema that aims at telling stories for history that were either hidden or not well known. In this race the leader had been Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri with his ‘Files’ trilogy. The Tashkent Files brought the light the death of India’s Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, The Kashmir Files spoke about the insurgency of Kashmir during the 90s and the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, while his latest film The Bengal Files spoke about the Noakhali riots that place is repose to the DIrect Action day. The Tashkent Files was made on a small budget and minted Rs 3.5 crore in its first week and went on to complete its box office journey with a collection of Rs 16 crore it was declared a superhit at the ticket window. The success of this film gave Agnihotri the confidence to tell the Kashmir story in a big way, the film connected with the audience and went on to make Rs 252 crore at the box office in India. Of the total collection the film had earned about Rs 97.3 crore in week 1.
But when it came to his latest film The Bengal Files, the film has been underperforming from the start of its journey. The film in its first week has only collected Rs 11.25 crore, which is 8 times lower than The Kashmir Files’s week 1 collection. The film has been struggling to find the audience. And the journey ahead for the film looks an uphill task with the release of Teja Sajja’s Mirai which has already taken the box office by storm, by 10 AM in India the film has collected Rs 1.17 crore and in North America it is minted about USD 367,000 and it could well be in it’s way to become a huge money spinner not only in Telugu but also in Hindi.
