Box Office: With the release of Saif Ali Khan's Jewel Thief, revisiting his last Bollywood action entertainer Vikram Vedha

Saif Ali Khan is currently trending among audiences with the release of his latest film, Jewel Thief: The Heist Begins. Known for leading stylish and classy action thrillers like Race 1 and Race 2, this marks the actor’s first major action entertainer in recent years. The film is helmed by Kookie Gulati and Robbie Grewal under the banner of Siddharth Anand’s Marflix Pictures.

Jewel Thief features Saif Ali Khan alongside Jaideep Ahlawat, Nikita Dutta, and Kunal Kapoor in lead roles and is a direct-to-digital premiere on Netflix. It is the latest Bollywood movie on Netflix, released on April 25, 2025. As the film continues streaming, let’s revisit the last major Bollywood action thriller Saif Ali Khan starred in, Vikram Vedha, and its box office performance.

Box Office Performance of Vikram Vedha

Vikram Vedha was released in 2022 and featured Saif Ali Khan and Hrithik Roshan in the lead roles. The film was directed by Pushkar-Gayathri. It carried massive pre-release hype, as it was one of the biggest Bollywood movies to release after the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, it marked the comeback of Hrithik Roshan in a leading role nearly three years after the blockbuster War.

Upon its theatrical release, Vikram Vedha received highly positive reviews from both critics and audiences. However, it failed to perform well at the box office. Despite high expectations, the film opened to Rs 10.25 crore (India net) and collected a total of Rs 79.50 crore (India net) over its lifetime run, against a budget of nearly Rs 100 crore. This performance made it a flop at the box office.

In the post-pandemic era, audiences have shown declining interest in remakes of South Indian films, especially those already popular in dubbed Hindi versions. This trend affected Vikram Vedha as well, since it was the official remake of the director duo’s own 2017 Tamil film Vikram Vedha, which starred R. Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi.

Watch the Jewel Thief trailer

Following the failure of Vikram Vedha, Jewel Thief marks Saif Ali Khan’s Bollywood comeback in a full-fledged, large-scale action thriller. Before this, he played the antagonist in the Jr. NTR-led action drama Devara: Part 1, a Tollywood film.

Stay tuned to Pinkvilla for more updates.

ALSO READ: Jewel Thief Part 2 CONFIRMED; sequel to Saif Ali Khan and Jaideep Ahlawat's heist thriller announced