Huge shocker to award winning director

National Award-winning director Vivek Agnihotri received a huge jolt as his latest offering ‘The Vaccine War’ is struggling badly at the box office after its release last Friday. The film, a tribute to the selfless and untiring efforts of the medical fraternity and scientists who acted as frontline soldiers during the COVID pandemic across the country, failed to strike an emotional chord with the audience and received mixed reports.

Due to poor word of mouth, The Vaccine War was unable to recover even the publicity costs in two days. This is an unexpected shock to Vivek and his team because ‘The Kashmir Files’, a bold and heart-wrenching tale that captured the pain of Kashmiri pundits during the exodus of the 1970s, emerged as a runaway blockbuster in 2022 and won numerous plaudits. The film also won a national award in the Best Film for National Integration category as well.

Because of the success of The Kashmir Files, Vivek Agnihotri’s announcement of The Vaccine War grabbed the eyeballs of moviegoers across the country. It was expected that this film would see a similar box office success as the first one. However, the film failed in all aspects. Despite receiving rave reviews from premieres, the film couldn’t even collect 2 crores in two days. Trade circles are shell-shocked with the outright rejection from Bollywood audiences.

The medical drama tells the story of the development of the vaccine Covaxin during the Covid-19 pandemic in India. The movie is marketed as ‘India’s first bio-science film. It depicts the sacrifices and achievements made by the Indian scientific community in the creation of India’s first Covid-19 vaccine.

It stars Anupam Kher, Saptami Gowda, Pallavi Joshi and Nana Patekar in prominent roles.