Kantara: Chapter 1 opened to strong word-of-mouth thanks to its ambitious filmmaking, technical brilliance and Rishabh Shetty’s outstanding performance which has won praise everywhere. However, low pre-release buzz impacted its North America numbers. The trailer cut didn’t generate strong pre-sale momentum, which clearly affected the premiere and first weekend collections.
Despite this, the film gained traction and ended Sunday with $507K, which is a solid number. The overall first weekend totaled around $2.48 million, a pretty big figure for most films. For Kantara: Chapter 1, however, expectations were higher due to the stakes and investments involved. The second-week performance will be crucial, but the Sunday number above $500K is an encouraging sign that the film may hold well.
Looking at the language-wise breakdown: the Telugu version led with $1.04 million, slightly above the original Kannada version at $1.01 million. Considering the relatively small Kannada population in North America, this is impressive. The Hindi version, however, only collected $220K, which significantly pulled down overall numbers. While Hindi picked up in North Indian markets, it hasn’t yet resonated in North America. Tamil contributed $7K and Malayalam $1K, which is expected.
As Monday begins, the real test for Kantara starts: how it holds into the second week will determine the overall North America run.
Gautam Gambhir and the Indian team management faced questions after their decision to send Tilak…
Prabhas might be one of the biggest superstars in Indian cinema, but there have been…
