Filmmaker SS Rajamouli’s RRR (Roudhram Ranam Rudhiram), the period action film that released on Friday, has collected Rs 223 crore at the worldwide box office on day one, surpassing the director’s own previous record with Baahubali 2: The Conclusion.
RRR now holds the record for biggest opening of all time for an Indian film, its makers announced on Saturday.
Rajamouli’s last film to hit the theatres before this one, Baahubali 2 had collected a record Rs 212 crore worldwide on the day of its release, April 28, 2017. It is notable that this was during pre-Covid-19 times, making RRR’s current achievement all the more impressive.
Anupam Reddy, Secretary of the Telangana State Film Chamber of Commerce, told Silverscreen India that RRR has collected Rs 104 crore (gross) in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana put together, and Rs 73.6 crore (nett). The film, which was also released in Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, and Malayalam, has made an additional Rs 158.6 crore (gross) and Rs 101.35 (producer share) from other regions in India.
RRR is a fictional account of freedom fighters Alluri Sitaramaraju and Komaram Bheem, essayed by Ram Charan and Junior NTR, respectively. The film boasts a star cast drawn from several industries, including Hindi actors Alia Bhatt and Ajay Devgn, Irish actor Alison Doody, Shriya Saran, Ray Stevenson, and Olivia Morris, among others.
The Rajamouli directorial opened to full occupancy in the Telugu-speaking states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where theatres ran five shows and were permitted to charge hiked ticket prices.
Speaking to us about its performance, Balgovind Raj Tadla, secretary of Greater Telangana Exhibitors Association and partner at Sudharshan 35mm and Devi 70mm single-screen theatres in Hyderabad, said, “We are very happy about the film’s reception. It was like Diwali and Sankranthi came at once. We recorded full occupancy for all five shows on the first day.”
He added that the weekend shows are already fully booked. “Even for Monday, about 800 tickets are booked. About 13,000 people watched RRR yesterday (Friday) across our two screens. A complete spectrum of age groups were seen coming in.”
Akshita Reddy, who runs the Ranga 70mm single-screen theatre (1329 seats) in Hyderabad, told us that all their screenings were houseful as well. “The film is attracting three fandoms: those of Junior NTR, Ram Charan, and Rajamouli. This film can easily become the highest-grosser of all time because of the anticipation surrounding it,” she added.
Ahead of the release of the film, both the AP and Telangana governments had granted movie owners permission to increase their ticket prices for a period of 10 days, the former by Rs 75 and the latter by Rs 30-100.
Akshita Reddy observed that this worked in favour of single-screen theatres. “It helped us and people got back to the roots of movie watching. Even people who usually prefer multiplexes, came to us instead since the hiked prices at multiplexes were quite high.”
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Some theatres in Andhra Pradesh had put up barbed wires and fences to protect their screens from possible damage from excited audiences, and a few did witness some ruckus.
Tadla told us they had beefed up the security at their premises with bouncers to avert such untoward incidents. Akshita Reddy said there was some excitement at her theatre, but it was controllable and she too had her security on alert.