The Vvaan Box Office Verdict: Can Sidharth Malhotra’s Folklore Spectacle Survive Its Own Second Half?
The Hindi heartland has always had a curious relationship with its own myths. It worships them, fears them, and then builds a highway straight through them.
The Vvaan: Force of the Forrest, released in theatres on September 25, 2026, arrives as a big-budget attempt to bottle that exact contradiction—faith versus rationality, conservation versus construction, legend versus land record—and sell it back to the same audience that lives it every day.
On paper, this is the most ambitious swing of Sidharth Malhotra’s career. A mythological fantasy thriller rooted in Bihari folklore, produced by the unlikely combination of Balaji Telefilms, TVF Motion Pictures and 11:11 Productions, and written by Arunabh Kumar after reportedly visiting the real Van Devi Temple near Bihta.
In practice, the film is fighting a two-front war: one at the box office against its own Rs 80 crore budget, and another in the court of public opinion against a screenplay that critics say loses its nerve in the second half.
Story Conflict and the Core Thematic Premise
The narrative follows Rishi, a Mumbai-based civil engineer and self-professed atheist, who returns to his ancestral village of Devanchal in Bihar with his wife Mamta during Chhath Puja.
The couple is carrying the kind of grief that doesn’t announce itself—the loss of an unborn child six years earlier—and it has hollowed out their marriage.
Rishi’s reason for the visit is cold and practical: settle a land dispute and cut ties with the village forever.
Mamta, by contrast, leans into devotion, and that ideological rift between the rationalist husband and the spiritually inclined wife forms the film’s emotional spine.
Devanchal operates under an ancient prohibition. Nobody enters the sacred forest after sunset. The forest is said to be protected by Van Devi, a goddess whose shrine was established centuries ago to contain dark forces.
When Rishi walks into that forbidden forest to retrieve a wandering ox, he confronts phenomena his engineering degree cannot explain.
His survival convinces the villagers he is the prophesied descendant destined to guard the forest—a claim he rejects as superstition.
The secondary conflict arrives through Sunil Grover’s Deepak, an influential local fixer who wants to bulldoze a road through the protected forest.
Deepak’s greed curdles into patricide, then into the theft of a sacred anklet tied to the forest’s protective lineage.
He enters the forest himself and emerges possessed by the leader of the dark forces, converting a land-and-faith drama into a full-blown good-versus-evil spectacle with Rishi as an unwilling chosen one.
It is a genuinely layered premise. The environmental conservation angle, the grief-marriage subplot, and the atheism-versus-faith debate all have commercial and critical potential.
The problem, as multiple reviewers have noted, is that the film never quite braids these threads into one rope.
Main Cast and Crew
“The Vvaan has solid story but gets lost in execution in the second half—a folklore spectacle that mistakes scale for soul.” — Trade review consensus
Box Office and Commercial Trade Breakdown
The commercial story here is one of walk-ins outperforming advance bookings. Pre-release conversation was thin, and advance numbers were modest, yet the film converted curiosity into footfall once screens opened.
That pattern—soft advances, strong same-day walk-ins—is a heartland signature, and it explains why Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have emerged as the film’s strongest circuits.
The Monday drop of 63.4 percent from Friday is steep but not catastrophic for a mass-frontloaded release.
The bigger concern is the Rs 80 crore reported production budget against a worldwide gross of Rs 58.64 crore by Day 6.
With 7,070 shows still running and Sunday occupancy touching nearly 50 percent, the film retains a pulse, but the road to profitability now depends entirely on weekday holds and the strength of its second weekend rather than star-power-driven opening hype.
One notable silver lining: the opening weekend marks Sidharth Malhotra’s biggest domestic debut since 2015, a data point that matters enormously for his post-theatrical valuation even if the film itself struggles to break even.
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OTT Valuation and Streaming Bidding Comparison
Here lies the film’s most consequential unresolved variable. For a mid-budget mythological fantasy with a strong regional identity, the post-theatrical digital sale could be the difference between a write-off and a modest recovery.
The absence of official confirmation on a streaming partner at this stage in the cycle is unusual for a film of this scale, and it signals either ongoing negotiation or a deliberate strategy to let theatrical legs play out before cashing the digital cheque.
What is clear is the directional trend: Sidharth Malhotra’s box office opening has been climbing with each theatrical outing, and platforms have historically rewarded that upward trajectory with stronger acquisition bids.
Whether that momentum translates into a premium digital price for The Vvaan will depend heavily on how the film holds through its second week—a period where the mass circuits of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh will matter more than metros.
Theatrical Experience Versus Streaming Reception
This is a film built for the big screen in ways that are both its strength and its vulnerability. The Van Devi temple sequences, the Chhath Puja imagery, and the forest-set confrontation between Rishi and the possessed Deepak rely on scale, sound design, and collective audience reaction.
In single-screen heartland cinemas, where folk-horror registers as lived experience rather than genre exercise, those sequences land with a communal electricity that no living room can replicate.
But the same theatrical dependence exposes the film’s seams. Cinema Express’s scathing 1/5 review called it “the most tedious film of the year,” citing wayward narrative rhythm, abrupt tonal shifts between intense scenes and forced comedy, blatant product placements, and derivative special effects.
Those are precisely the flaws that get magnified on a 70mm screen with a paying audience that has nowhere to hide.
On streaming, viewers can pause, skip, or multitask through the film’s uneven second half—or abandon it altogether, which would suppress the completion rates that platforms now weight heavily in licensing renewals.
The paradox is that a film this visually ambitious and thematically dense might actually perform better on streaming, where its folklore world-building can be appreciated at a personal pace.
But that outcome would be cold comfort for a production that spent Rs 80 crore betting on the theatrical window.
The Vvaan’s ultimate commercial identity—theatrical success or streaming recovery project—will be decided in the next fortnight.
Helpful Search Intent Questions
What is The Vvaan: Force of the Forrest about?▼
The Vvaan follows Rishi, an atheist civil engineer who returns to his ancestral Bihar village and confronts supernatural forces in a forbidden forest protected by the goddess Van Devi, ultimately forcing him to reconcile faith with rationality.
Who is in the cast of The Vvaan?▼
Sidharth Malhotra plays Rishi and Tamannaah Bhatia plays Mamta, with Sunil Grover as the antagonist Deepak, Maniesh Paul as Ved Prakash, and supporting roles from Shweta Tiwari, Anup Soni, Durgesh Kumar, and Sulabha Arya.
How much did The Vvaan earn at the box office?▼
The film earned Rs 8 crore nett on Day 1 in India, Rs 33.60 crore nett over its opening weekend, and had reached Rs 58.64 crore worldwide gross by Day 6.
Is The Vvaan based on a true story or real folklore?▼
The film draws from the real-life Van Devi Temple near Bihta in Bihar, with writer Arunabh Kumar developing the story after speaking with locals, priests, and villagers about the temple’s legends.
What is the runtime of The Vvaan and is it censored?▼
The Vvaan has a runtime of 2 hours 17 minutes, and its censor rating has not been officially confirmed.
When will The Vvaan release on OTT?▼
The streaming partner and digital premiere window for The Vvaan have not been officially confirmed yet.
How did critics review The Vvaan?▼
Reception is sharply divided. Pinkvilla noted a solid story lost in second-half execution, Filmfare gave it 2/5, and Cinema Express gave it 1/5, calling it tedious, while heartland audiences have responded better to its folk-horror setting.
Sources and Trade Citations
1. The Indian Express — “Vvaan Box Office: Sidharth Malhotra film earns as much as Param Sundari, mints Rs 58.64 cr” — https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/vvaan-box-office-collection-day-6-sidharth-malhotra-film-earns-rs-58-crore-worldwide-same-as-param-sundari-10901636/
2. Pinkvilla — “The Vvaan Movie Review: Sidharth Malhotra’s forest adventure has solid story but gets lost in execution in the second half” — https://www.pinkvilla.com/entertainment/reviews/the-vvaan-movie-review-sidharth-malhotras-forest-adventure-has-solid-story-but-gets-lost-in-execution-in-the-second-half-1405590
3. Times of India — “Sidharth Malhotra and Tamannaah Bhatia’s ‘The Vvaan’ draws from mysterious Van Devi Temple folklore, makers reveal” — https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/sidharth-malhotra-and-tamannaah-bhatias-the-vvaan-draws-from-mysterious-van-devi-temple-folklore-makers-reveal/articleshow/133627523.cms
Editorial Note: Independent trade analysis and streaming guide for THE VVAAN Movie 2026 Filmyzilla | OTT Valuation, Cast & Streaming Updates. We support official theatrical and legal OTT releases.