‘KGF’ emerges as Kannada cinema’s dark horse
New Delhi: Kannada period action drama KGF: Chapter 1 seems to be showing no signs of slowing down. The Yash-starrer has made over Rs 176 crore at the box office with trade experts predicting a shot at Rs 200 crore too. About Rs 32.95 crore has come from the dubbed Hindi version alone, with an increase in screen count from 780 to 951 in its third week.
“KGF is best in Mumbai-Mahrashtra belt,” trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted adding that certain later weekdays recorded ever better numbers than before. “Holidays on second Monday (31 December) and second Tuesday (1 January) gave a big boost.”
The Prashanth Neel directed film is slowly emerging as one of the highest grossers in the history of Kannada cinema with its release across Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam, apart from Kannada. The Hindi version of the film closed its first week at Rs 21.25 crore taking the collections to Rs 1.25 crore, Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 2 crore on the second Friday, Saturday and Sunday respectively.
The film may have been hit by the massive earnings of Ranveer Singh-starrer Simmba but it is important to note that it was released alongside Shah Rukh Khan’s Zero on its opening day and didn’t just sustain but run in theatres for a substantial amount of time.
In the US, the film has emerged as the highest Kannada grosser of all time, making more than $400,000 in the first five days only.
The first installment of the two-part series tells the story of an orphan, played by Yash, who arrives in Mumbai in the 1960s and becomes involved with the gold mafia in a quest for power and wealth. The film features Anant Nag, Srinidhi Shetty, Vasishta N. Simha, Ayyappa P. Sharma and Harish Roy in supporting roles alongside Yash.
With the success of non-Hindi language films like the Baahubali franchise, 2.0 and now KGF, trade experts point to the importance of releasing movies in multiple languages to reach out to pan-India audiences. Like Karan Johar’s role in the north India presentation of Baahubali and 2.0, the Hindi version of KGF has been backed by Farhan Akhtar’s company Excel Entertainment.
