Fans outside Regent Fun Cinemas on Friday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Shah Rukh Khan’s Diwali cracker is loud but only the weekend collections would indicate if it’s deafening.

Happy New Year failed to garner enough crowds on the opening day though the SRK-Deepika Padukone film managed to fill coffers for King Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainments when compared to his two previous Diwali releases.

On Friday, HNY could collect only Rs 15,78,452 but turned out to be far better than his previous Diwali releases Jab Tak Hai Jaan (Rs 5.5 lakh) and Ra.One (Rs 3.5 lakh). HNY — the 11th film of SRK released during Diwali — could not break his own previous record of Rohit Shetty’s first day collection of Rs 16,85,786 for Chennai Express. The film had, however, released on Id 2013.

The first Friday show at 10am was not houseful, which is very unlikely for a King Khan film. Despite a bouquet of ace actors like Abhishek Bachchan, Sonu Sood, Boman Irani and newcomer Vivaan Shah, many gave the film a miss on Day-I.

On why seats were empty, Suman Kumar Sinha, the chairman-cum-managing director of Regent Theatre Pvt Ltd, said: “This could be because of post-Diwali tiredness, which forced cine buffs to stay at home. Otherwise, the show would have been houseful. I am sure that from Saturday the footfall would pick up. If the film had been shorter, we could have increased the number of shows to five. This could have meant more collection.”

The three-hour film is the story of Charlie (Shah Rukh Khan) who wants to avenge his father’s death. Charan Grover (Jackie Shroff) had betrayed SRK’s father (Anupam Kher) and had landed him in jail, which led to his death.

“The film proved to be a dud considering the amount of hype an SRK film carries. On so many occasions, I felt a scene was not required or a song was unnecessary. There would have been no impact on the script of the film if those scenes were deleted. Shah Rukh and Deepika sizzled but Farah’s Om Shanti Om was better,” said Ritesh Kumar, a resident of Buddha Colony, who watched the film at Regent Fun Cinemas as soon as it opened its gates.

Salman Khan’s Kick was the highest grosser with a whopping Rs 23,62,548 collection on the day of release. The film had released in August 2014 Id.