Director and producer R Balki’s last movie, Abhishek Bachchan, Sayami Kher’s sports-drama Ghoomer was released to positive reviews, but the movie was a huge box office failure. Released a week after Gadar 2 and OMG 2, on August 18, the film got steamrolled due to the craze of Sunny Deol and Akshay Kumar-starrer. 

R Balki has opened up about the failure of Ghoomer, and he confessed that the film didn’t got sandwiched but smashed. While speaking to Indian Express, Balki said that they did not have any other release date. He further added if Ghoomer had come along with Gadar 2, they may have been better off. “Gadar 2 did better in the second week. Nobody expected this kind of a thing. We thought everyone would do well and we could have the second week. This kind of tsunami was not expected.” R Balki said. 

Paa and Cheeni Kum director further added that films like Ghoomer need enough amount of time for word of mouth to travel. “The word of mouth was too much for other films. Yes, even Ghoomer had that and it did make people go to theatres, it still is going on. But sometimes you need a proper showcasing, which we couldn’t get,” the filmmaker added.  Summarising the box office fate of Ghoomer, R Balki called it “unfortunate.” 
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This isn’t the first time R Balki has faced such a hurdle at the box office. Back in 2018, his Akshay Kumar-starrer Padman and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmavat were scheduled for January 26, but then Balki had to push the film a few weeks ahead to avoid the wave of Padmavat. “It was bad luck, both for Ghoomer and Padman, which was supposed to come out on January 26 and then Padmaavat happened and all that controversy. It was such a wave, the same kind of tsunami so we had to postpone. There was such good anticipation for the film but then this got released and suddenly everything went out of the window! Sometimes s**t luck happens and you don’t know what to do.” Gadar 2 and OMG 2 were released in cinemas a week before Ghoomer, on August 11.