Tamil superstar Suriya’s new film Retro, which is directed by Karthik Subbaraj, starts on a good note at the Indian box office amid mixed reviews. The gangster drama, which hit screens in multiple languages on May 1, raked in Rs 19.25 crore on its first day in India, with Tamil Nadu being the major contributor.
Retro – as per trade portal Sacnilk, Retro made Rs 17.25 crore from its Tamil version of the film and Rs 1.95 crore from the Telugu-dubbed version. The Hindi version followed with an unremarkable Rs 0.05 crore. It had a very good 78.89% overall occupancy for its Tamil shows on Thursday, and around 83.91% for the afternoon shows.
Retro had a pretty good opening in Telugu belts as it started with 33% in the morning shows, gathered 45% in the afternoon shows and ended up at 38% in the evening. But, its run in the Hindi belt was hardly impressive as it had a mere average occupancy of 8%.
Opening numbers are viewed as a positive sign — despite the film’s mixed-to-lackluster critical reception. A review in India Today observed that while Retro is technically sound and has good music by Santhosh Narayanan, the storytelling is weak at the start and also gets too didactic, at times spelling out its themes rather than allowing them to unfold naturally.
It is based on a gangster who later tries to change his ways to redeem himself in his wife's eyes, but 'hires' a small-time con artist to act as if he's changed. His love interest is played by Pooja Hegde with the supporting cast of Jayaram, Joju George, and Karunakaran.
Though Retro had managed a modest opening, yet as per the reports, it wasn’t sufficient to surpass the first-day earnings of Ajith Kumar’s film Good Bad Ugly grossed ₹29.25 crore from the first day of its release.
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With strong word-of-mouth amongst Suriya fan following and good TN occupancy, Retro has the potential to rise more over its weekend run. But it's unclear whether the film can keep up that pace and catch up to its plank-holding box office rival.
It was also the day when another Ajay Devgn-starrer, Raid 2, was released, making it a high-stakes box office clash. With the weeknd rolling in, Retro's big new challenge will be to maintain the momentum of its early success.
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