The Paradise is heading towards Nani’s first significant loss in nearly eight years in the overseas markets, since Devadas and Krishnarjuna Yudham. The film’s box-office performance appears more disappointing for Nani, who has slowly and steadily built one of the most reliable overseas markets among Telugu stars with solid content.
Nani’s consistent track record of delivering content-based profitable films had created strong confidence among overseas buyers and audiences. That trust was clearly visible with The Paradise. The film opened to a sensational response in North America and turned its massive pre-release hype into one of the biggest openings of Nani’s career.
The film collected around $1.63 million from US premieres and Day 1 alone. For a Tier-2 star, that was a phenomenal start and showed that Nani’s market had taken another major step forward.
But then everything changed. The Paradise witnessed big drops on Friday and Saturday, followed by a massive crash on the first Sunday. From Monday onwards, the collections became negligible. The film simply could not sustain the momentum created by its sensational opening.
The Paradise collected only around $58K on Day 6 in North America, despite Tuesday passes being available. The total North American gross has now reached around $2.09 million. It is right now heading towards a finish of around $2.3 million in North America.
If the content had connected, The Paradise could have converted that bumper opening into a long theatrical run and potentially delivered a career-defining result for Nani in the US. Instead, weak content and extremely poor word of mouth brought the film down almost immediately.
This is particularly painful because The Paradise is not just a box-office disappointment for Nani. It was a golden opportunity wasted after delivering such a massive opening in the US.
