Hyderabad: The Independence Day box-office battle has begun even before the first show, and Hyderabad appears to have already picked its favourite.

Emraan Hashmi’s Awarapan 2 and Sunny Deol’s Batwara 1947 are both arriving in cinemas on August 14. While the two films are targeting completely different audiences, their advance-booking numbers reveal a surprisingly one-sided race in the city.

According to the latest figures available on August 12, Awarapan 2 has collected around Rs 11.26 lakh in opening-day advance bookings across 89 tracked shows in Hyderabad. Its real occupancy stands at an impressive 25%, with eight shows almost full and another 21 filling fast.

Batwara 1947, meanwhile, has registered around Rs 87,380 across 42 tracked shows in Hyderabad. Its current occupancy stands at 2%, with no shows listed as almost full or filling fast at the time of the update.

The numbers make one thing clear: Emraan Hashmi’s fan following in Hyderabad is translating into actual ticket sales.

BookMyShow also shows a huge gap in online interest. Awarapan 2 has crossed 319K interested users, while Batwara 1947 stands at over 137K. At the time of checking, Awarapan 2 had recorded 3.58K ticket bookings in just one hour. Batwara 1947 displayed 8.94K bookings over 24 hours, which means the two figures cannot be compared directly despite the latter appearing bigger at first glance.

The return of Emraan as Shivam after 19 years, the cult following of the original film and its much-loved music appear to be working strongly in the sequel’s favour. The film also stars Disha Patani and Shabana Azmi.

Batwara 1947, starring Sunny Deol, Preity Zinta and Shabana Azmi, carries the backing of Aamir Khan Productions and an Independence Day-friendly Partition theme. However, its A certificate and serious period-drama treatment could make it more dependent on reviews and word of mouth.

Bookings can still pick up before Friday, but for now, Hyderabad’s choice appears clear. The city is waiting for Shivam’s return.