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Alia Bhatt is leaving no stone unturned to promote her film Alphawhich is set to release in theatres on Friday. In most of the promotional city tours and college events, Alia and Sharvari were seen promoting the film together. However, in the last few promotional events, Alia has been promoting the film solo, while Sharvari has been busy shooting for another film.

A video has now gone viral showing Alia promoting Alpha at a college event in Ahmedabad, where she playfully pulled a standee of Sharvari onto the stage as the actress was missing from the event. Alia joked, ‘Sharu is missing, but she is here with me.’

During the interaction, Alia also spoke about her Alpha journey and said that every woman is an alpha in her own way. When a fan asked who the real Alpha is at home, she smiled and replied, “Raha is the real Alpha.”

With Alia travelling across cities for promotions, many netizens questioned why the male actors from the film, including Anil Kapoor and Bobby Deol, have not been part of the promotional campaign. Several users on social media pointed out that Alia has been carrying out the on-ground promotions almost entirely on her own.

A user wrote, “Tomorrow Alpha is Going to release But something wrong is going on during their Promotional Events Only Alia Bhatt and Sharvari is promoting The Movie From the Beginning but Bobby Deol and Anil Kapoor is not event once promoted the Film During Events Did the Makers completely ignored the Male actors.”

Amid the chatter around the male actors’ absence from promotions, Alia’s mother, actor Soni Razdan, shared a heartwarming family photograph on Instagram featuring four generations of women: her 97-year-old mother Gertrude Hoelzer, daughters Alia Bhatt and Shaheen Bhatt, and granddaughter Raha.

Sharing the picture, Soni introduced her mother as the original Alpha woman and reflected on her remarkable life. She wrote, “One OG ALPHA woman and four generations in one frame! Alia’s Nani, who is all of 97 years young. No, it’s not her birthday today, but on the eve of her granddaughter’s release, she wanted to wish her this way.”

Soni further revealed that her mother was only six years old when her family was forced to flee Nazi Germany. Although they were German and not Jewish, she explained that her grandfather openly opposed Adolf Hitler, putting the family in danger.

“My mother escaped Nazi Germany when she was just six years old. Although German and not Jewish, they had to run because my grandfather was a brave man and openly stood against Hitler,” she wrote.

After leaving Germany, the family spent several difficult years in Czechoslovakia before eventually reaching the United Kingdom aboard a Jewish Kindertransport train, one of the rescue operations that helped children escape Nazi-controlled Europe.

“After a few years in Czechoslovakia, enduring many hardships, she and her family landed in the UK, escaping on a Jewish Kindertransport train. The trials she faced were many. Then she met and married N.N. Razdan and finally started a new life in India,” Soni added.

She concluded by writing, “All our mothers and grandmothers are Alpha women.”

While Alpha continues to dominate social media conversations, reports suggest that the film is struggling to gain momentum at the box office, with advance bookings remaining below expectations.

Advance bookings for Alpha opened only on Wednesday afternoon, less than two days before the film’s release. By Thursday morning, the film had seen limited traction on ticketing platforms. By 10 am, Alpha was reportedly selling around 1.3K tickets per hour on BookMyShow. For a film mounted on such a large scale, the numbers are considered underwhelming.

Overall, the film had sold around 12K tickets across India by Thursday morning, generating just over ₹40 lakh in advance bookings. Even after including bookings for Saturday and Sunday, the collection reportedly remained below ₹50 lakh.

Until last week, trade analysts expected Alpha to register a decent opening, with some predicting it could come close to the higher end of the single-digit range. However, the slow pace of advance bookings has reportedly forced the trade to revise its estimates.

According to industry insiders, Alpha may now open with around ₹4.5 crore on its first day, while even the more optimistic projections are not expecting it to cross ₹6 crore.

If these estimates hold true, Alpha could become the lowest-opening film in Yash Raj Films’ Spy Universe. However, many believe it would be unfair to compare it with superstar-led blockbusters such as Ek Tha Tiger, War, and Pathaan.

The projected opening also places it close to Alia Bhatt’s previous release, Jigra, which opened at ₹4.55 crore and underperformed at the box office. It would also trail Raazi, Alia’s 2018 spy thriller, which had opened at over ₹7 crore.

Directed by Shiv Rawail, Alpha is the first female-led spy thriller from Yash Raj Films and is a part of the YRF Spy Universe, which includes Pathaan, the Tiger franchise, and War. The film releases in theatres on Friday.