Akshay Kumar, Radhika apte
Akshay Kumar and Radhika Apte in PadmanMovie Stills

Akshay Kumar's PadMan, which tries to bust social taboos surrounding menstruation, seems to have failed to win the attention of the audience despite the grand fanfare. The movie, which started off slowly on the opening day, saw almost 50 percent dip in its collections on Monday (February 13) compared to its opening day collections.

R Balki's directorial, which was released across 2,750 screens in India and 600 screens overseas (worldwide total: 3,350 screens), showed good growth over its first weekend after a decent Friday. However, it failed to pass the crucial Monday test and collected merely Rs 5.87 crore despite no big release at the box office.

On Friday, it managed to earn Rs 10.26 crore while it raked in Rs 13.68 crore on Saturday and Rs 16.11 crore on Sunday.

There is no doubt that the much-hyped movie has underperformed at the box office considering the number of screens it acquired across India and overseas.

PadMan business was also affected by Sanjay Leela Bhansali's period drama Padmaavat which is giving tough a competition to Akshay Kumar starrer despite no screening in many parts of the country.

Padmavat vs Padman
Ranveer Singh in Padmaavat, Akshay Kumar in PadManMovie Stills

While PadMan collected Rs 40.05 crore over its first weekend, Padmaavat continued its victory run at the box office and collected Rs 17.8 crore even in its third weekend, taking the total to Rs 253.8 crore.

PadMan, which tries to spread awareness about menstruation and menstrual hygiene, opened to mixed reviews from the critics and audience alike.  

It remains to be seen whether PadMan will be able to pull the audience to the theatres in the days to come or will Aiyaary eat into its share at the box office when it will hit the cinema halls on February 16.

The PadMan, which also stars Radhika Apte and Sonam Kapoor in prominent roles, is based on the real-life story of Arunachalam Muruganantham from Tamil Nadu who invented a machine to make low-cost sanitary napkins and dedicated his life to spreading awareness on menstrual hygiene in rural India.