Box office collection: The Kerala Story is the surprise success of 2023

The Kerala Story made Rs 8.03 crore in ticket sales on its first day in theatres.

In times when the biggest of films are failing, here comes The Kerala Story. Directed by Sudipto Sen, the film has not just taken a very good opening but also done better than most Hindi films (barring four) released in 2023 so far. It is next only to Pathaan, Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar and Bholaa when it comes to the best Day 1 earnings for a Hindi film in 2023.

The film's promotion started merely a couple of weeks back, and while it did shock quite a few, somehow there weren't many talking about it. It's just from Monday this week that the film started seeming like a serious contender to take some sort of an opening, though again it appeared that the best-case scenario would be a start of Rs 2-3 crore.

Since the film is bereft of conventional entertainment quotient, it was coming across as one of those films which was arriving in theatres because OTT wanted to have a wait-n-watch approach before giving it a digital premium. Well, the reverse has happened now as the film has not just taken a phenomenal start but created such euphoria that it would play on for many weeks to come. This means that now for OTT it would get a very good deal for itself and there would be other avenues that would open up as well for the Vipul Shah film.

Coming to the opening day collections, the film has accumulated as much as Rs 8.03 crore on its first day. For comparison, Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway, a film bigger than this one in terms of scale, setting and star cast, had opened at Rs 1.27 crore. Indeed, the first-day collection for The Kerala Story is more than the first weekend numbers of Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway which stood at Rs 6.42 crore. The Rani Mukerji starrer has seen a lifetime score of just over Rs 20 crore and The Kerela Story should surpass that mark today itself.

So where does the film head from here? Well, it's a given that nothing less than Rs 75 crore will come for the film and there won't be any surprise either if the Adah Sharma starrer enters the 100 Crore Club. Just about anything can happen for this film, which is exactly on the same lines as Vivek Agnihotri's The Kashmir Files. That film had started at Rs 3.55 crore, and then had gathered Rs 253 crore in its lifetime run to emerge as an all-time blockbuster.

As for the other releases in the running, Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan is now coming to a close of run as after playing in theatres for 15 days, it has collected Rs 108 crore. What seemed like an open month ahead for it won't really be the case as The Kerala Story has turned out to be huge and then there is Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 as well which has opened well at Rs 7 crore*. With the new releases accumulating almost as much between them (Rs 15 crore*) as the Salman Khan starring Eid release had done on its opening day (Rs 15.81 crore), it's an impressive run.

For long, distributors and exhibitors had been waiting for something fantastic to arrive that would give a good push to the theatre business. That has now happened with The Kerala Story and hopefully it would be a start of many more good things to come in weeks to follow.

*Estimates. Final numbers awaited

Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources