Thug Life box office collection day 2: Kamal Haasan film sees big drop, Hindi version wiped out by Housefull 5

Thug Life box office collection day 2: Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan’s much-hyped reunion after 37 years has not quite panned out the way the two stalwarts would have hoped for.

Thug Life, their new film, has opened to lukewarm reviews and is not faring too well at the box office. On Friday, the second day of its release, the film saw a major drop.

According to Sacnilk, Thug Life earned ₹7.50 crore in all languages on Friday, a steep 55% drop from its opening day figure of ₹15.50 crore. This takes its two-day India total to ₹23 crore. Interestingly, Akshay Kumar’s comedy Housefull 5, which released on Friday, earned that much on its opening day itself.

The release of Housefull 5 was also detrimental to Thug Life’s business in the Hindi-speaking regions. Billed as a pan-India film, Thug Life was heavily marketed in the north as well. However, it opened its Hindi business at a paltry ₹65 lakh. Trade insiders predict the number for day 2 to be somewhere in the ₹25-30 lakh range. This means that Thug Life may struggle to even reach ₹5 crore net in Hindi in its lifetime, a rather disappointing figure for a star of Kamal Haasan’s stature.

But Thug Life is not doing too great in Tamil either. Its ₹23-crore two-day haul is far below Kamal Haasan’s last box office hit, Vikram. The Lokesh Kanagaraj film had earned ₹60 crore net in its first two days upon release in 2022. Even Indian 2, the box office disappointment that was released last year, had fared better, netting ₹44 crore in its first two days at the ticket window. Clearly, Thug Life has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to stay afloat. Thug Life has notably suffered due to a non-release in Karnataka following Kamal Haasan’s controversial statement on the Kannada language.

Thug Life also features Trisha, Silambarasan, Joju George, Ashok Selvan, Nasser, Abhirami and others. The music for the film is by maestro AR Rahman while the cinematographer is Ravi K Chandran and editor is A Sreekar Prasad.