High-profile movie clashes get a lot of attention in Hindi cinema, and it's been a while since we had a clash of the scale we are going to witness on March 19, 2026: Dhurandhar: The Revenge vs. Toxic (Hindi). So how are the two films currently faring in terms of audience response?

Ormax Cinematix (OCX) is our campaign tracking and first-day box office (FBO) forecasting tool, available in eight languages, including Hindi. The tool reports three audience parameters for unreleased films. While films enter the main OCX report only after their trailer is released, tracking for major films starts as soon as any video asset is out. Hence, both Dhurandhar: The Revenge (Dhurandhar 2) and Toxic are already being tracked.

This analysis is based on the relative tracking of these two films in the weekly cycle of Jan 30-Feb 5, 2026, only in the Hindi market. This analysis does not consider the performance of these films in the South markets. For the uninitiated, Karnataka is the home market for Toxic. But like previous major Kannada films such as K.G.F: Chapter 2 and Kantara - A Legend: Chapter 1, the Hindi market contributes significantly to all India box office.

OCX reports three audience parameters, namely Buzz, Reach and Appeal, captured using primary research, with a weekly sample size of 2000+. Let’s understand how the campaigns for Dhurandhar: The Revenge and Toxic (Hindi) fared in the week of Jan 30-Feb 5 (six weeks before release), through the lens of these three parameters.

Buzz

Buzz refers to the unaided recall of the film, i.e., % audience who named the film, when asked to name as many upcoming films as they could, in the Hindi language in this case. Buzz is a strong indicator of the talk value of the film, i.e., the degree and effectiveness of conversations around the film among theatre-goers.

The chart below compares the Buzz for the two weeks in the week of Jan 30-Feb 5.

Dhurandhar: The Revenge has an eight percentage points lead over Toxic (Hindi) on Buzz. Given the success of the first film, which became the all-time highest Hindi language grosser, and dropped on Netflix to great success in the week for which this data is being reported, Toxic (Hindi) has performed creditably in comparison.

Reach

Reach refers to the awareness of the films, i.e., % audience who have heard the name of the film. Reach captures how wide the film has managed to penetrate among theatre-goers. The chart below captures the Reach of the two films six weeks before their release.

Given the franchise factor, Dhurandhar: The Revenge expectedly scores 90%+ on Reach. Despite being a non-franchise film, Toxic (Hindi) is already at 79% Reach in the Hindi market, a strong performance given that only one major video asset for the film has been released so far.

Appeal

Appeal is a metric that reports % audience who have a definitive intention to watch the film in a theatre, among those aware of the film. Appeal is a strong indicator of the creative strength of the campaign, i.e., the collective pull of the film’s cast, theme, genre, music and other such aspects, as communicated via the various assets in the campaign.

The chart below offers a comparison of the Appeal of the two films, six weeks before their March 19 release.

It's on Appeal that the difference between the two films opens up majorly, with Dhurandhar: The Revenge being 28 points ahead of Toxic (Hindi). Evidently, the Appeal for Toxic (Hindi) can be expected to go up as more video assets, including the main trailer, are released. But at a staggering 87%, Dhurandhar: The Revenge has already registered the highest Appeal scores ever achieved in OCX six weeks before any Hindi (or dubbed Hindi) film's release.

While Dhurandhar: The Revenge's Appeal is consistently high across audience segments, the Appeal for Toxic (Hindi) witnesses some significant skews: male audiences (62) vs. female audience (53), single screens (62) vs. multiplexes (56),  and small towns (62) vs. mini metros (57) vs. metros (52).

Conclusion

Currently, Dhurandhar: The Revenge holds the edge over Toxic (Hindi), primarily on the strength of the franchise value built through the first film's unqualified success, and its subsequent premiere on streaming, which has been timed perfectly to coincide with the title announcement of the second film.

However, the main campaign for Toxic (Hindi) hasn't started yet, and the film has significant headroom for growth. While it is expected to catch up with Dhurandhar: The Revenge on Buzz and Reach, it's on Appeal where the wide gap will be difficult to plug, and a highly effective trailer will be needed for Toxic (Hindi) to enter the late 70s or early 80s on Appeal, which will bring it within striking distance of Dhurandhar: The Revenge's Appeal, which is expected to be in the 90s in the week of release.

OCX tracking data suggests that both films have strong audience traction, and what their relative share of box office is on the first day (March 19) will also come down to their relative release scale and multiplex showcasing, which will be known only closer to the release. Subsequent to their first day, the films will perform based on audience word-of-mouth, and we have seen in multiple instances (most famously Bajirao Mastani vs. Dilwale) that the film opening lower can go on to become the bigger film on the strength of its content.