All records are unprecedented in their own rights, but only the rarest of them create true history. Something similar has happened with the Indian film Fraud Saiyaan, starring Arshad Warsi, Saurabh Shukla, and Sara Loren. In a first for an Indian movie, the box office collections of Fraud Saiyyan in Pakistan have superseded the film’s earnings in India.
So Bad that So Good!
The Indian comedy-drama could only manage a cumulative figure of 66,75,000 (66 Lacs 75 thousand) INR on the Indian box-office. In Pakistan, however, the total collection of movie stands at 1.80 Crores. This is news because even if the movie’s Indian collections are adjusted as per the current exchange rate difference (1 INR = 1.95 PKR), its collections in India would still stand around 1.3 crores PKR.
Released in Pakistan on 18th January 2019, the film has managed to achieve this incredible feat by collecting more in Pakistan than India even though it was a much bigger release in its home country (on 475 screens). For some reason, however, even after receiving mostly bad reviews, the film has managed to find more appreciation in Pakistan.
Postmortem
A significant reason for this is the correct decision in terms of the film’s release date (take notes Pakistani filmmakers and distributors). It resulted in a very mild competition as no other film could manage any commendable standing at the local box-office. This even included comparatively bigger releases like Cheat India and Manikarnika, that starred actors like Emraan Hashmi and Kangana Ranaut in the lead roles, respectively.
The other probable reason could be it starring the local girl, Sara Loren, and that too in short but quite a prominent role opposite Arshad Warsi. The third and last reason could be the film’s adult content as even the censors passed the film with an Adults Only certificate.
Indian movies with such content have a good past of doing well in Pakistan, which for some might be difficult to digest but is true. The most prominent example of this is the Sunny Leone and Randeep Hooda starrer Jism 2, that was released in Pakistan on Eid 2012 and did quite well.
Reasons could be many, but the important fact is that Arshad Warsi and Sara Loren’s Fraud Saiyaan now holds the record of doing more business in Pakistan than India. It would be one hell of a record to break for any other Indian film anytime soon, but then, all records are meant to be broken.
