Maddock's Horror Comedy Universe has been a roaring success at the box office. The only blemish on that record is Bhediya, the Amar Kaushik film that earned a belated acclaim but was a disappointment at the box office. In a recent conversation, the filmmaker admitted that the film's failure affected him. ()

Speaking with Komal Nahta on The Game Changers podcast, Kaushik analysed the box office failure of Bhediya. “Do cheezein thi jo mujhe baad mai samajh mein aayi, ek toh ussi time aa gayi thi (There were two factors that I realised later). Just like Stree 2 released with two other films, Bhediya also had a clash with Drishyam 2 and it was a good film. It was released a week before our film, so it had already created buzz. Sab wohi dekhne jaa rahe the (Everyone was going to watch that). And I made the film targetting the younger crowd and exams were going on at that time. Students didn’t even know. They got to know after the OTT release and liked it very much,” he said.

Bhediya, however, paved the way for the horror comedy universe as it borrowed Abhishek Banerjee's character from Stree, merging the two films. Varun Dhawan then reprised his role as Bhaskar in a cameo in Stree 2. He is set to return in Bhediya 2, part of the next phase of the Horror Comedy Universe.