Most weekends hand you one story. This one handed over three, and they barely fit in the same article. A franchise comedy walked into an empty June and grabbed #1 almost exactly where our model said it would. A film nobody was watching on Friday refused to stop growing — three weeks in and still climbing. And half a world away, one of the most expensive movies of the year opened to a number that should make a studio sweat, while a horror film made for pocket change kept lapping it. Here's the whole thing, India and America, the way we'd walk you through it over a drink.
01The new #1: Welcome to the Jungle
Give Akshay Kumar an open weekend and he'll take it. The third Welcome — a big, loud ensemble comedy from Ahmed Khan — had something Bollywood almost never hands a film anymore: an empty room. No serious Hindi competition, the whole June window to itself. And it cashed in. ₹3.75 Cr in Thursday previews, ₹15.25 Cr on Friday, and then the part that matters — it grew into Saturday at ₹20 Cr, with Sunday climbing toward ~₹26 Cr. Add it up and you land at roughly ₹65 crore nett for the weekend, the biggest opening any Welcome film has ever posted.
And we didn't wait for the dust to settle to say so. A full month out, on May 24, our Welcome to the Jungle Hype Index put a number on the board: ₹19 crore for Day 1, a ₹15–24 Cr range around it, a ₹155 Cr lifetime call, and one blunt line of reasoning — it's walking into an empty June, so the opening was never the worry; the hold is. The film opened to ₹19 crore including previews. That's the call, to the rupee. We miss plenty. This one we'd like to frame.
The reviews are where it gets interesting. They split clean down the middle — audiences had a good time with the slapstick and Akshay's timing, critics rolled their eyes at a thin story stuffed with cameos — and there's no holiday coming to rescue the weekdays. A franchise-best open is real, and worth saying out loud. But ₹100 Cr for the weekend was never happening, and that ₹155 Cr lifetime now rides entirely on the Monday-to-Thursday drop. Overseas only underlines it: measured against Akshay's own 2026 comp, Bhooth Bangla, the weekend abroad is running about a third light, Gulf-led, with North America barely showing up. Call it what it is — a home-market story.
The sleeper that won't quit: Main Vaapas Aaunga
Here's the one I can't stop thinking about. While everyone had their eyes on the Akshay machine, the best story in June was a film the trade quietly buried on day one. Imtiaz Ali's Main Vaapas Aaunga — Diljit Dosanjh with Sharvari and Vedang Raina, an A.R. Rahman score humming underneath — opened soft on June 12 and slid down the chart like a hundred films before it.
And then it did the one thing films almost never do. It grew. Its second Saturday didn't dip — it leapt +129% over the day before, a movie climbing while the rest of the chart quietly bled out. Two-plus weeks in and it's still adding rupees, near ₹27 Cr nett in India and ~₹38 Cr worldwide, every bit of it powered by people walking out of a hall and telling a friend to go.
Let's be straight: it's not a blockbuster. Against a ~₹60 Cr budget it's still climbing toward its money. But it's the cleanest little economics lesson on the whole board right now. Everything that opened huge is dutifully riding the curve down. Main Vaapas Aaunga is tearing the curve up and rewriting it, one weekday at a time.
02India's Top 10
Look past the new #1 and the real muscle this weekend was in the holdovers. Samantha Ruth Prabhu's Maa Inti Bangaaram didn't just hang on into week two — its second Friday jumped +75%, the kind of number you only see when families and repeat crowds keep coming back, and the makers announced a sequel mid-run to nobody's surprise. Higher up the lifetime board, Ram Charan's Peddi is still a giant at ~₹238 Cr. And then there's Cocktail 2, the trap the headline writers keep walking into: ₹77 Cr sounds like a hit right up until you remember it cost ₹110 Cr to make.
| # | Film | Days | This wknd | India cum. | Worldwide | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Welcome to the Jungle NEW Hindi · Akshay Kumar | 3 | ~₹65 Cr | ~₹65 Cr | ~₹97 Cr | Opening |
| 2 | Maa Inti Bangaaram ▲ hold Telugu · Samantha | 10 | ~₹16 Cr | ~₹49 Cr | ~₹70 Cr | Blockbuster |
| 3 | Obsession Hollywood | 25 | ~₹7 Cr | ~₹90 Cr | ₹1,400 Cr+ | Blockbuster |
| 4 | Cocktail 2 Hindi | 10 | ~₹6 Cr | ₹77 Cr | ₹109 Cr | Hit * |
| 5 | Peddi Telugu · Ram Charan | 25 | ~₹4 Cr | ₹238 Cr | ~₹290 Cr | Blockbuster |
| 6 | Toy Story 5 Hollywood | 10 | ~₹3.5 Cr | ~₹16 Cr | $160M+ WW | Flop (India) |
| 7 | Carry on Jatta 4 NEW Punjabi | 3 | ~₹3.2 Cr | ~₹3.2 Cr | ~₹3.8 Cr | Opening |
| 8 | Main Vaapas Aaunga ▲ climbing Hindi · Imtiaz Ali | 17 | ~₹3 Cr | ~₹27 Cr | ~₹38 Cr | Surprise legs |
| 9 | Haunted 3D: Echoes Hindi | 17 | ~₹2 Cr | ~₹20 Cr | ~₹12 Cr | Hit (small) |
| 10 | Disclosure Day Hollywood · Spielberg | 17 | ~₹2 Cr | ~₹16 Cr | ~$185M WW | Tracking |
* Cocktail 2 — strong collections, but tracking under its ₹110 Cr budget: a hit on paper, not yet on the P&L. India figures are nett; worldwide is gross. Sunday is part-day actual + BCM close estimate; holdover weekend splits are BCM estimates pending Monday actuals.
03America's Top 10: Pixar holds, DC sinks
If you want a clinic in how wrong presale tracking goes when a brand stops meaning anything, here it was. Toy Story 5 held the top with a tidy -56% second-weekend drop and rolled past $297M domestic in ten days — fine, expected, no drama. The drama was Supergirl. Trackers had it at $45–50M. It limped in at $38M domestic and a frankly grim $68M worldwide against a budget reported between $170M and $186M — opening under Morbius and breathing the same thin air as Joker: Folie à Deux. The exact audience a Supergirl movie is built for, young women, just didn't turn up. And the dagger: Curry Barker's Obsession, made for less than a million dollars, pulled another ~$9.4M in its seventh weekend and out-held a $186M superhero movie without breaking a sweat.
| # | Film | Wk | Pre-wknd tracking | 3-day | Domestic cum. | Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Toy Story 5 Disney · Pixar | 2 | $80–90M | $70.0M | $297.2M | under |
| 2 | Supergirl NEW WB · DC | 1 | $45–50M | $38.0M | $38.0M | big miss |
| 3 | Obsession Focus Features | 7 | ~$10M | $9.4M | $233M | in line |
| 4 | Jackass: Best and Last NEW Paramount | 1 | ~$10M | $8.4M | $8.4M | under |
| 5 | Disclosure Day Universal · Spielberg | 3 | ~$8M | $8.1M | $94M | in line |
| 6 | Michael est Lionsgate · biopic | 10 | — | ~$4M | $300M+ | settles Mon |
| 7 | Scary Movie est Paramount | — | — | ~$3M | $200M+ | settles Mon |
| 8 | Backrooms est A24 | 6 | — | ~$3M | $185M+ | settles Mon |
| 9 | The Super Mario Galaxy Movie est Universal · Illumination | 12 | — | ~$2.5M | $405M+ | settles Mon |
| 10 | Project Hail Mary est Amazon MGM | 14 | — | ~$2M | $320M+ | settles Mon |
Positions 1–5 are confirmed Sunday actuals (Deadline / Variety / The Wrap / Gold Derby). Positions 6–10 are BCM estimates and exact order settles with Monday's final numbers. The overall weekend totalled ~$158M (−32% off the Toy Story 5 launch frame); 2026 is running +15% YoY at $4.7B, summer past $2.1B (+17%).
04What we're watching next
Three numbers are going to tell the story this week. First, Welcome to the Jungle's Monday — the drop that decides whether ~₹65 Cr of opening becomes a ₹155 Cr hit or a polite fade by Friday. Second, whether Main Vaapas Aaunga can keep doing the impossible and climb into a third week. And third, across the ocean: does the July 4 frame throw Supergirl a rope, or does DC's reboot stall before it ever really gets going? We'll have the updated India chart and the next US read the moment Monday's numbers harden. Stick around.
05FAQ
How much did Welcome to the Jungle earn in its opening weekend?
About ₹65 crore nett in India across June 26–28, 2026 (previews ₹3.75 Cr, Friday ₹15.25 Cr, Saturday ₹20 Cr, Sunday tracking ~₹26 Cr), and roughly ₹97 crore worldwide gross — the highest opening weekend in the Welcome franchise.
Did Boxoffy's prediction for Welcome to the Jungle come true?
Yes. Boxoffy's May 24 Hype Index set a Day-1 base of ₹19 crore. The film opened to ₹19 crore including paid previews — exactly on the call — and topped the chart in its empty window as predicted. The ₹155 crore lifetime call now depends on the weekday hold.
Why is Main Vaapas Aaunga performing so well?
Imtiaz Ali's Main Vaapas Aaunga (Diljit Dosanjh, A.R. Rahman) is growing instead of fading — its second Saturday rose about +129% on word of mouth. It's near ₹27 crore nett India and ~₹38 crore worldwide, still climbing into its third week.
What won the US box office on June 26–28, 2026?
Toy Story 5 held #1 with $70M in its second weekend (cume $297M). New release Supergirl flopped at $38M against $45–50M tracking and a ~$170–186M budget, followed by Obsession ($9.4M), Jackass: Best and Last ($8.4M) and Disclosure Day ($8.1M).