Kartik Aaryan's highly-anticipated film Chandu Champion finally hit the theatres this Friday. On its opening day, the Kabir Khan film managed to score decent numbers at the ticket counters. On Day 1, it minted ₹4.75 crore at the domestic box office, as per Sacnilk. Chandu Champion is based on the life of India's first-ever Paralympics gold medallist and Padma Shri recipient Murlikant Petkar. The film revolves around the never-give-up attitude of Murlikant Petkar. Chandu Champion, which was released on June 14, is jointly backed by Kabir Khan, Sajid Nadiadwala and Pen Studios. Apart from Kartik Aaryan, the film features Vijay Raaz, Shreyas Talpade, Rajpal Yadav, Bhagyashree and Sonali Kulkarni.
On Thursday, the makers of Chandu Champion hosted a grand screening in Mumbai. The guestlist included Kartik Aaryan's Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 co-star Vidya Balan, his Pati Patni Aur Woh co-star Ananya Panday and Freddy co-star Alaya F.
Murlikant Petkar and his family also attended the first screening of Chandu Champion. In one of the clips, Kartik Aaryan can be seen sitting alongside the legendary athlete and his family. When the film ended, Murlikant Petkar's son, Arjun Petkar, couldn't hold back his tears and gave a warm hug to director Kabir Khan and Kartik. Sharing the clip Kartik Aryan wrote, “First screening of Chandu Champion with the Man himself. An evening filled with honour, joy and tears with The Real Champion The Man who refused to surrender Mr Murlikant Petkar.”
Earlier, in a conversation with news agency IANS, Kabir Khan revealed why he chose Kartik Aaryan for this role. Kabir Khan said, “When I was writing the script of 'Chandu'... obviously, when you are writing the script, you have an image in your mind. And that image, that character, has an age, personality, attitude... So, when you have these pointers, the next step is to identify which actor can embody all these characteristics. Very strongly, I felt those characteristics in Kartik Aaryan.”
He added, “We have never worked before, not even met properly. Then we had a meeting for around 2.5 hours, during which we had a lot of conversations about the film. As a director, during our talks, it's my job to gauge whether he is the right fit for this character. A director's gut instinct is very strong. After that 2.5-hour meeting with him, I was very clear that Kartik would be the Chandu Champion.”
In his review for NDTV, film critic Saibal Chatterjee gave Chandu Champion 2.5 out of 5 stars. He wrote, “Chandu Champion might have worked better than it does had the cinematic enactment been a touch less melodramatic and a little more realistic… “To be fair, however, Chandu Champion is pacy and enjoyable. It wastes no time in hitting its straps. Such was the nature of the life that it brings to the screen that it has no time to pause for breath. With the lead actor getting into the swing of things with all his might, the exercise isn't weighed down as other such films are by the cliched tropes of the underdog drama.”