With Shaitaan, Ajay Devgn began 2024 on a high note, earning an astounding ₹ 144 crore in just one month of its release in India. Now, the eagerly anticipated sports drama Maidaan, starring Ajay Devgn, opened in theaters on Tuesday, April 10. It is the actor’s second movie of the year. The movie made ₹ 2.68 crore on its opening day at the domestic box office, according to a Sacnilk report. Ajay Devgn, Priyamani, and Gajraj Rao star in Maidaan. It explores the life of Syed Abdul Rahim, the renowned football coach who won two gold medals for India in 1952 and 1962.
Some fans made parallels between Maidaan and the venerable sports drama Chak De India after the teaser for the movie was released. In response to these parallels, Maidaan director Amit Ravindernath Sharma discussed the film’s uniqueness in an interview with India Today. “People compare sports films as soon as they come out because they tell the story of a coach and players,” he stated. People think the movie is similar even before they see it.”
Amit Sharma further elaborated, “There are no similarities between these films, except maybe 22 players are running after one ball on the field. The story is different, the struggle is different. This is also not a sports biopic, it’s the journey of Abdul Rahim. Maidaan is about his emotional journey. Football is just the medium.”
Maidaan opened to largely mixed reviews. Film critic Saibal Chatterjee, gave the film 2 stars out of 5 and wrote, “To be fair, however, it isn’t as gratuitously blustery as Bhaag Milkha Bhaag nor as drably predictable as M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story although its runtime is roughly the same as those two films. And it certainly anywhere near replicating the range of relevant thematic concerns that defined Chak De! India.”
He added, “Maidaan, which celebrates the golden era of Indian football by bringing to the screen the story of a legendary man manager and football strategist working in a newly independent nation born amid the pain of the Partition, is a hit and run exercise that is undermined by ill-advised overkill.
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