Prabhas’ Raja Saab has wrapped up its run on a disastrous note, closing at just $2.35 million. For a film that was aggressively marketed as the “biggest horror fantasy ever from Indian cinema,” these numbers are not just disappointing, they are embarrassing.
The breakup only makes things worse. The Hindi version collected a shocking $58,000, while Tamil contributed a negligible $3,000. The US market brought in $2.16 million, with Canada adding $179,000. For a film starring Prabhas, who is often projected as “India’s biggest superstar,” this is a humiliating result.
The warning signs were visible from day one. The film opened to low numbers in North America, and the audience response was extremely negative. Word of mouth was very poor, and collections dipped sharply from the next day itself. After that it was a crash and by the second weekend, the collections completely collapsed to zilch.
The Raja Saab is expected to close at around Rs.185 to Rs.190 crore worldwide. This figure is far below expectations for a Prabhas film releasing during a huge and lucrative festival season like Sankranti. The scale of the project, the hype around the genre, and the pan India push make this disastrous performance even more glaring.
What makes it more problematic is that it is as big a disaster as Ram Charan’s Game Changer from last year. Both films got weak openings, poor public talk, heavy drops, and finally settled at nearly the same disappointing lifetime numbers. In trade terms, The Raja Saab will be remembered as one of Prabhas’ weakest films at the box office, on par with Radhe Shyam.
The Raja Saab is a clear reminder that even the biggest names will face outright rejection when execution goes terribly wrong.
