The Paradise BO Crash: Can Anyone Still Beat Ram Charan?

Peddi leads the 2026 Tollywood box office race

As far as Telugu cinema is concerned, 2026 is slowly coming to an end. And unless something unexpected happens in the remaining months, Peddi looks set to finish as Tollywood’s Highest Grossing Film of the Year (HGOTY).

There were genuine expectations that Nani’s The Paradise could challenge Peddi. The hype around the film was huge, and everything seemed to be in place. A decent word of mouth could have pushed it towards the top of the 2026 box-office charts. Unfortunately, the film failed to live up to that hype.

The Paradise received negative reviews from the first day, while poor word of mouth started affecting the film during the weekend itself. Still, the film managed to survive because of its massive pre-release hype, two chartbuster songs and Nani’s credibility.

But the film has crashed badly on Monday, especially in Andhra Pradesh. The combined Andhra and Ceeded gross on the first Monday was reportedly lower than the Hyderabad City gross alone. That shows just how sharply the film has fallen outside Nizam.

Nizam, however, continues to remain relatively decent. The Paradise reportedly added around Rs. 5 crores domestic gross on its first Monday, along with another Rs. 35 lakhs from overseas. Its worldwide total has now reached around Rs. 135 crores in five days.

The film still has a long way to go before reaching its breakeven mark.

There are still several major films coming up this year. Vijay Deverakonda’s Ranabaali, Venkatesh’s Aadarasha Kutumbam AK-47, Balakrishna’s Dada, Nagarjuna’s King 100 and Naga Chaitanya’s Vrushakarma are among the films carrying decent box office expectations.

Can any of them surprisingly breakout and overtake Peddi? There is an outside chance, but it certainly will not be easy.

It’s sad that Tollywood couldn’t deliver even a 500-crore grosser this year, forget about delivering a 1000-crore film. But the real excitement in Telugu cinema is in 2027. The big-film season will properly return with Sankranthi, and the lineup is massive next year.

Mahesh Babu-Rajamouli’s Varanasi, Prabhas’ Spirit, Prabhas’ Fauzi, NTR-Prashanth Neel’s Dragon, Allu Arjun-Atlee’s Raaka, and several other big-ticket projects are waiting. The stakes are higher than ever, and the stage is all set.