Naagzilla vs Bhediya 2 Box Office: Clash That Never Was
Nag Panchami weekend was supposed to hand Bollywood its loudest creature fight in years. Snake against wolf. Kartik Aaryan against Varun Dhawan. If you’ve been hunting for Naagzilla vs Bhediya 2 box office figures since Friday morning, here’s the blunt version: there’s no head-to-head to report, because only one of these two films was ever going to reach a screen on August 14, 2026.
Naagzilla moved. Quietly, and months ago.
That single scheduling change rewrites the whole story. So instead of a fake numbers duel, let’s lay out what actually shifted, what Bhediya 2 stands to pocket from an empty runway, and whether the sequel deserves your ticket money.
Naagzilla vs Bhediya 2 box office: why the clash quietly died
The clash was real once. Trade coverage from April 2025 lined up Kartik Aaryan’s naag film against Varun Dhawan’s werewolf sequel for the same Independence Day corridor, and the internet did what the internet does.
Then the calendar moved. Naagzilla now carries a February 12, 2027 release date, locked in after the shoot wrapped, per Box Office Worldwide’s July 2026 report. Valentine’s weekend, not Nag Panchami.
Plenty of clash-preview articles still floating around your feed haven’t caught up. They’re arguing over who’d slither ahead in a race that has one runner.
Here’s the side-by-side, minus the drama.
| Feature | Naagzilla | Bhediya 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Lead cast | Kartik Aaryan | Varun Dhawan, Kriti Sanon |
| Director | Mrighdeep Singh Lamba | Amar Kaushik |
| Producers | Karan Johar, Mahaveer Jain, Adar Poonawalla, Apoorva Mehta, Sujit Jain | Dinesh Vijan (Maddock Films) |
| Studio | Dharma Productions + Mahaveer Jain Films | Maddock Films |
| Franchise | New IP, no universe | Sixth film in the MHCU |
| Release date | February 12, 2027 | August 14, 2026 |
What Kartik Aaryan is actually betting on
Naagzilla is a swing at building something from scratch. Mrighdeep Singh Lamba, the man behind the Fukrey films, directs it. Gautam Mehra wrote it. Kartik Aaryan plays a centuries-old shape-shifting naag with the very Dharma-ish name Preyamvadeshwar, “Pyare Chand” to his friends, in a fantasy comedy built on Indian folklore, as Hollywood Reporter India laid out when the film was announced.
Note the backers. Dharma and Mahaveer Jain Films, not Maddock. That matters more than it sounds.
Bhediya 2 walks into a theatre with five films of goodwill behind it. Naagzilla walks in with a title and a star. One of those is a franchise; the other is an audition for one.
Moving to February 2027 buys Kartik Aaryan breathing room he genuinely needed. A solo Valentine’s weekend beats a bruised third place in August.
Bhediya 2 and the Maddock money machine
Now the numbers you came for. Not Day 1 collection, because those don’t exist yet, but the franchise record that makes Bhediya 2 the safer bet of the two.
Maddock’s horror comedy universe has been printing money on modest budgets:
| Film | India + worldwide gross | Budget |
|---|---|---|
| Stree (2018) | ₹182 crore | ₹23–25 crore |
| Bhediya (2022) | ₹108.97 crore | ₹60 crore |
| Munjya (2024) | ₹132.13 crore | ₹30 crore |
| Stree 2 (2024) | ₹884.45 crore | ₹50–105 crore |
| Thamma (2025) | ₹211.81 crore | ₹145 crore |
Look at Stree 2. That’s ₹884.45 crore off a budget that topped out around ₹105 crore, per the franchise breakdown on Wikipedia’s Maddock Horror Comedy Universe page. Thamma’s ₹211.81 crore on a heavier ₹145 crore spend is the softer entry, and it still cleared its cost.
The glue is the cameo web. Bhediya dropped Stree’s characters into its climax. Munjya pulled threads from both Bhediya and Stree. Thamma tied all five together, with Abhishek Banerjee’s Jana turning up in every single film like the universe’s mascot.
That’s why a Bhediya sequel arrives pre-sold. Fans aren’t buying one film, they’re buying the next episode.
If you want the wider Hindi picture this year, our highest-grossing Bollywood movies of 2026 so far list shows exactly how much of the top end franchise titles are eating.
Day 1 collection: what we actually know
Straight talk, because plenty of sites will fill this space with invented figures.
There’s no verified Day 1 number for Bhediya 2 in any tracker we could check. Bollywood Hungama’s own Bhediya 2 box office page still reads “No data to Display.” Sacnilk and Koimoi have nothing indexed either.
Stranger still: as of its August 11, 2026 update, Wikipedia’s MHCU page listed Bhediya 2 as in pre-production while also carrying the August 14 date. Those two facts don’t sit together comfortably, so treat the release-day status as unsettled until Maddock confirms screens.
The useful baseline instead? Bhediya (2022) opened at ₹7.48 crore net on Day 1 in India and finished at ₹108.97 crore. Any sequel worth its franchise tag should beat that opening comfortably, especially post-Stree 2.
Curious why every tracker quotes a different figure anyway? We broke that down in how box office collection is calculated in India.
Paisa Vasool Ya Time Waste? Our call
Bhediya 2 gets a free holiday weekend, a returning director, a returning pair of leads, and an audience that has shown up five times running. On paper this is one of the softest landings a Hindi sequel could ask for in 2026.
The catch is Thamma. Big budget, decent gross, thinner margin. The MHCU is getting more expensive to make, and the cameo trick can only carry a film so far before it starts feeling like homework.
Our verdict: Paisa Vasool for Bhediya 2, if it releases on schedule. Book it once the numbers land and word of mouth settles past Saturday.
As for Naagzilla, park the excitement till February. Kartik Aaryan dodged a fight he didn’t need to pick, and honestly, that’s the smartest move anyone made in this whole saga. Two-film clashes rarely end well for the newcomer — ask anyone who’s tracked a box office clash weekend before.
We’ll update this post the moment real collection figures land. Bookmark it, and tell us in the comments which creature you’d back.