AR Murugadoss Recalls Day Scenes Were Shot At Night For Sikandar Since Salman Khan Was NEVER On Time

AR Murugadoss, the director behind Salman Khan’s Sikandar, didn’t sugarcoat the chaos of making the film. He talked about how the shoot was kind of a mess, especially with Salman’s legendary late arrivals.

Murugadoss had to flip the whole schedule, shooting “day” scenes in the middle of the night because Salman would only show up after 8 PM. The rest of the crew, used to working from the crack of dawn, just had to adapt.

AR Murugadoss reveals how it was working with Salman Khan

AR Murugadoss revealed, “It’s not easy to shoot with a star. Even day scenes, we have to shoot at night because he turns up to the sets only by 8 PM. We are people who are used to shooting right from early mornings, but that’s not how things work there.”

AR Murugadoss mentioned in an interview with Valaipechu Voice that working with big stars isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Take a scene with school kids, for example: instead of wrapping before bedtime, they’d be filming at 2 in the morning. Unsurprisingly, the kids were exhausted and sometimes just nodded off between takes.

Sikandar, which hit theatres during Eid, was supposed to be this big comeback for Salman. But even with a flashy opening and the festival buzz, the movie just didn’t stick at the box office. It wrapped up with about Rs 110 crore, which, honestly, was underwhelming compared to all the hype.

The film also starred Rashmika Mandanna, Kajal Aggarwal, Sharman Joshi, and Sathyaraj. Critics had mixed feelings, and the audience turnout fizzled after the initial rush.

Murugadoss, by the way, is the guy who gave us Ghajini with Aamir Khan and Holiday with Akshay Kumar, so he’s not new to handling stars. 

Sikandar box office collection

Sikandar hit theatres with a massive 200 crore budget but stumbled right out of the gate, pulling in just 30.06 crores on opening day. Not exactly the fireworks everyone was hoping for.

At first, there was this faint hope that maybe the film would claw its way back and cover costs. Even after raking in 115 crores during its first week, the movie’s performance nosedived at the Indian box office. It limped along for over a month, but once Raid 2 dropped, Sikandar was shown the exit.

When all was said and done, the film wrapped up with a net total of 129.95 crores in India. 

Looking at the worldwide numbers, Sikandar grossed 153.34 crores in India. Overseas, things didn’t look much better, with only 58 crores coming in. Altogether, the film’s global gross touched 211.34 crores.