Yash’s Toxic has opened in North America with a premiere plus Day 1 gross of around $879K.
The language-wise numbers are interesting:
Telugu: $376K
Kannada: $192K
Hindi: $160K
English: $130K
Tamil: $20K
Malayalam: $1K
On its own, $879K is a decent opening. It’s below expectations but not a washout either. But the problem is the massive expectations surrounding Yash after KGF 2. KGF 2 collected around $1.7 million from premieres and Day 1 in North America. Toxic has managed only around half of that number.
However, KGF 2 was a franchise sequel with huge market value. The audience already knew Rocky, the world and the brand. Toxic is a standalone film and had to build its own market. So, expecting Toxic to match KGF 2 exactly would not be fair.
Even after considering that factor, $879K is certainly lower than what many expected from Yash at this stage of his career.
The bigger concern is the trend from here. Advance bookings for today and the next few days are not very encouraging. That makes the weekday performance extremely crucial.
If Toxic holds strongly on Thursday and Friday and picks up massively over the weekend, the current opening can still prove to be a healthy start. But if the film suffers a sharp drop and fails to pick up during the weekend, the trend could become very worrying for the US buyers.
The opening is done. Now Toxic needs to improve its word of mouth, better walk-ins, solid Thursday and Friday holds, and then a big weekend.
The real test for Toxic in the US starts now.
