Made in Rs 80 crore, this film was pushed 5 times, became box office disaster, its failure broke actor's heart, earned just Rs...

The 2019 Telugu sports drama Jersey starred Nani, Shraddha Shrinath, and Sathyaraj in the leading roles. The film revolved around the life of a former cricketer who returns to the pitch to fulfill his son's wish to buy a jersey of the Indian national cricket team. Made in just Rs 20 crore, the film became a commercial success and earned Rs 50 crore worldwide. It also went on to win two National Awards for Best Feature Film in Telugu and Best Editing to Naveen Nooli. However, its Hindi remake of the same name failed to replicate the success of the original in 2022.

Starring Shahid Kapoor, Mrunal Thakur, and Kapoor's real-life father Pankaj Kapur, the 2022 Hindi film Jersey was helmed by  Gowtam Tinnanuri, who had also directed the Nani-starrer. The Bollywood movie faced several delays in its production due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Its first release date was announced as August 28, 2020, and was then pushed to November 5, 2021. It was again postponed to December 31, 2021. The Omicron variant of the Coronavirus further pushed its release date to April 14, 2022. To avoid clash with the pan-India action drama KGF Chapter 2, Jersey was again postponed by a week and finally, hit theatres on April 22, 2022.

The budget of the Hindi remake was raised to Rs 80 crore, but the Shahid Kapoor film failed to earn even half of its budget. As per the industry tracker Sacnilk, the 2022 film Jersey earned Rs 20 crore net in India and grossed Rs 30 crore worldwide. Its commercial failure broke Shahid's heart as he felt that they didn't do justice to the film. Talking to IndianExpress.com about Jersey's box office debacle, the Kabir Singh actor said, "It just broke my heart. It was a really beautiful film and I feel the universe was not kind to us. The songs were out, the film was pushed for four months. The universe was not kind."

"With Jersey, I realised that films are like fast food, one has to consume it at that moment. If you wait, uska mazaa chala jaata hai (its fun goes away). We haven’t ever faced such a scenario, a pandemic, so we didn’t know how to go about it. And unfortunately, the film had to suffer. I also feel that we didn’t do justice to the film. We could have made better choices. I don’t know, some things are meant to be a certain way. Even when you have control over things, there’s sometimes no control", the actor stated.

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