Kabir Khan reacts to 83's poor box office performance, says pandemic hit us hard

Ranveer Singh's 83 received a lukewarm response at the box office. Director Kabir Khan has reacted to the poor performance of the film.

A little over two weeks after his much-awaited film 83 released theatrically, filmmaker Kabir Khan describes his headspace as a "mixed bag". While he is happy that the cricket drama has received unprecedented love, the feeling is also punctured with the reality that the project's box office prospects took a hit due to the coronavirus pandemic.Led by Ranveer Singh, the film chronicles India's win under Kapil Dev's captainship, when the team defeated the mighty West Indies in the final to clinch their first-ever World Cup trophy in 1983. 83 was expected to script history at the box office upon its release - in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam - on December 24 but the big-scale multi-starrer failed to translate the glowing reviews into numbers the trade was betting the film to do.

The film has so far collected more than Rs 97 crore domestically, according to production house Reliance Entertainment. In an interview with PTI, Khan called the film "a victim of the pandemic" and said 83 has put up the numbers despite battling Covid-19 restrictions, 50 per cent theatrical occupancy in key states and the complete closure of cinema halls in Delhi and Haryana.