Pad Man fails to cross Rs 100 crore mark on BO

When he made Pad Man, Akshay Kumar had already met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his earlier film Toilet: Ek Prem Katha. And then came paeans from Bill Gates, praising his effort in the film about sanitation for women in Indian villages and small towns. Khiladi Kumar was on a high. His social messages through Bollywood films were taking him places.

He did not even take his fee for the R. Balki directed Pad Man, which was a home production along with KriArj Entertainment. “Akshay was very hopeful that the film would be declared tax free across many Indian states, more-so because he paid another visit to Modi in an effort to do so. But then the tax-free status never came, even after the film was postponed. Despite meeting the Prime Minister and the subsequent delay in the release of the film, it never got a tax-free status,” says a trade source. The film’s collection at the end of the third weekend stood at less than Rs 80 crore and in no way seems to come close to the Rs 100 crore mark — a standard Akshay has maintained in most recent films. The actor had said, “I am not thinking of Rs 100 crore, or Rs 300 crore as the media and others are talking. I was sitting outside my vanity van the other day and there were four boys talking about the film’s trailer and they spoke on how sanitary pads are being worn. That for me, is the biggest achievement we could have had with our film. I am happy that we are achieving what we set out to.”